A dazzling, sometimes-lurid yet always lively adventure, indeed.
The Seven Swiney Sisters of Harristown, Ireland, thrillingly rise from starvation to stardom.
Raised on barely boiled potatoes and tales of their sailor father—whose unpredictable nocturnal visits are witnessed only by their mother, whom they do not entirely believe—the Swiney girls are blessed with fantastic rivers of hair, cascading below their knees and ranging in color from honey gold to copper red to the deepest black. They divide themselves into two tribes, each headed by one of the incessantly squabbling twins, Berenice and Enda. Redheaded, wry (and increasingly suspicious) Manticory, who narrates the saga, sides with Enda; the eldest sister, raven-tressed Darcy, is far too busy bullying everyone to join either tribe. After Manticory is nearly assaulted by a hair-obsessed maniac, Darcy conceives a plan to free the girls from poverty: The sisters devise a vaudeville show (using cleverly penned scripts by Manticory) filled with maudlin songs and hair-oriented skits. The finale features the sisters simply letting down their prodigious locks, to the delight of hair fetishists, hair-remedy quacks and neglected housewives. Under Darcy’s domineering supervision, the show is wildly successful. Soon enough, though, unscrupulous men manage to manipulate the young women financially and romantically. As if avoiding scandals and negotiating the perils of notoriety weren’t enough, Manticory begins to have doubts about the products they hawk, Darcy’s fiscal shenanigans and the mysterious small grave in the backyard of their Harristown home. Based on the true story of the Sutherland Sisters (whose own celebrity crashed after lavish spending sprees), Lovric’s (Book of Human Skin, 2011, etc.) tale is lush with delightful Irish rhythms and memorable characters, including Darcy’s childhood nemesis, Eileen O’Reilly, who longs to be part of the raucous Swiney clan but must settle for elaborate verbal combat.
A dazzling, sometimes-lurid yet always lively adventure, indeed.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62040-014-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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