A racy guilty pleasure replete with politics, romance, and plenty of sex.
A lobbyist and consultant juggles her political aspirations with her search for a meaningful relationship in this debut novel.
Clarissa Bateman, a beautiful, savvy woman, enjoys a thriving career and an active social life. Inspired by the social justice movements of the 1960s, she’s a lobbyist in Washington state by the late ’70s, with her own successful political consulting firm. When she’s not advocating for education and women’s issues, she’s spending time with her friends experiencing Seattle and Olympia’s vibrant music and arts scenes. Her intellectual prowess is only matched by her voracious sexual appetite, but short-lived dalliances with a reporter, a senator, and a free-spirited woman left her wanting something more stable. Her first taste of mature romance comes when she meets Karl Springly at a wedding reception. The slightly older, recently divorced news director courts her ardently and quickly becomes a devoted friend; however, his reluctance to make a firm commitment causes Clarissa to doubt the relationship will become permanent. When Clarissa meets Edward Burke, the new commissioner for higher education, the attraction is instant and mutual. Clarissa and Edward seem destined to be together if they can navigate some serious complications, including their political alliance, his pending divorce, and her unresolved relationship with Karl. Chartwell’s brisk and breezy narrative paints a vivid portrait of one woman’s life in the free-wheeling ’70s. The novel’s strongest elements are its settings and dynamic, unflappable heroine. Clarissa’s life is a whirlwind of work and lively parties, and Chartwell expertly re-creates the vibrant music scene of the era and the events where Clarissa mixes and mingles with people who may become political allies. She remains the novel’s most fully realized character, particularly in the sensitive way the tale explores how her party-girl social life often clashes with her serious political ambitions. Although some of the supporting characters are rather thinly developed, particularly Clarissa’s many flings, Karl and Edward are solid romantic interests who enable Clarissa to examine what she really wants out of life.
A racy guilty pleasure replete with politics, romance, and plenty of sex.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4834-3936-5
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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