A forgotten piece of Americana brought to vivid life.
A horse tells the story of the Overland Westerners’ ride around the United States in this YA historical novel.
Pinto, the equine narrator of this book, has handsome black-and-white coloring and a noble heritage as a Morab (half Arabian, half Morgan). He calls himself “a little horse with big dreams,” and that makes him perfect for accompanying his new owner, George Beck, on his fame-and-fortune scheme. The idea is that Beck and three other men—calling themselves the Overland Westerners—will leave Bainbridge Island in Washington in 1912 for a 20,000-mile trip, the longest horseback ride in history. They plan to visit every state capitol in the continental U.S., taking photographs of themselves with each governor. Along the way, they’ll sell calendars, postcards, and magazine subscriptions to help fund the journey and wind up in California for the 1915 World’s Fair, the Panama-Pacific Exposition. Like many other ambitious stunts, this one runs into severe difficulties: bad weather, arduous trails, and a constant money shortage, especially as the Westerners get farther east. Their promotional items and magazines don’t sell, and many governors refuse photo opportunities. The Westerners finish the odyssey, but there’s no gold at the end of their rainbow, and it’s hard on the animals; it can be upsetting to see them suffer. Happily, though, Pinto ends his days on Bainbridge, “a good life for a horse.” Historical information and photographs are included. In her book, Evans (The Stone of Wisdom, 2018, etc.) deftly brings out the pluck of the Westerners and the variety and verve of America in the early 20th century. At one stop, for example, the Westerners have no success because a stunt stilt-walker has already been through “and pinched every penny out of the people.” Pinto’s lively, appealingly egotistical voice is appropriate to this young, ambitious America: “I am quite aware of how spectacular I am.” But while they are brave, the Westerners’ vainglorious enterprise is hard to applaud because it mainly resulted in poverty for the men and exhaustion, injury, or worse for the horses.
A forgotten piece of Americana brought to vivid life.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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