This dynamic, genre-bending tale involving dreams and the Roanoke Colony delivers new discoveries and venerable truths.
A debut historical novel weaves a tale of youth, conflict, loss, and choice through one of America’s greatest mysteries.
Allie O’Shay has, in some ways, left her past behind, departing her family’s cattle ranch to pursue a doctorate in psychology. But the past is no simple thing, and Allie begins having strange, impossibly vivid dreams that seem to be genuine history, not fantasy. The dreams center on the Roanoke Colony, filling in the gaps of just how the settlement vanished. In particular, Allie feels drawn to a young colonist named Emily Colman, who’s particularly embroiled in the turmoil of Roanoke. Emily’s story offers a portrait of the colony: the escalating tensions and disastrous errors in dealing with the local Native American tribes, and the elation and grief as both new life and swift death come to Roanoke. Finally, there are Emily’s own timeless tribulations, as she contends with the romantic attentions of multiple men and faces a decision that could take her life places she never thought possible. Allie struggles to make sense of the dreams, and turns to everything from family history to cutting-edge dream theory to drugs in order to delve deeper. What’s more, as conditions in Emily’s timeline deteriorate, Allie learns she may be approaching an end to the dreams, leading to a terrifying conclusion that has wreaked havoc on the minds of women throughout her family line. Rhynard’s two compelling tales manage to combine powerful emotionality with thorough research, as both the investigations into dream theory in the present timeline and the colonial activities of the past are deftly detailed without overwhelming the characters or story. Similarly, while the narration centers on Emily and Allie, it also effectively incorporates the perspectives of all the other significant characters without becoming confusing. It’s possible that a chapter with more descriptions of Allie’s life immediately before the dreams began would have allowed readers to connect with her more in the novel’s early parts. But the suspense of the Roanoke story provides plenty of incentive to keep reading until Allie’s sections develop more weight.
This dynamic, genre-bending tale involving dreams and the Roanoke Colony delivers new discoveries and venerable truths.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5347-4081-5
Page Count: 612
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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