The Bread Maker

Name: The Bread Maker
Author: Moira Leigh MacLeod
ISBN: 978-1-4602-7217-6

by Moira Leigh MacLeod ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2016

This heartfelt historical novel about a homicide in the Canadian Maritimes is often hard to get through—but equally hard to...

bookshelf

A murder mystery upends a small coal-mining town and threatens to unearth numerous residents’ secrets.

In this debut historical novel, it’s 1933 in the Canadian Maritimes when Mabel Adshade gets caught in a snowstorm on her way to bake bread at Cameron’s Bakery and Dry Goods Emporium. A cheerful soul, despite her despicable father’s abuse, Mabel is fond of her job and her boss, the kindly James Cameron. Unfortunately, James’ wife, Margaret, is suspicious of her husband’s affection for this crass teenage girl, especially because the Camerons’ once-loving marriage hasn’t been the same since their young son died (“She’s nothing but trouble. I don’t know why you hired her…a scatterbrained girl, with no experience, and not a single reference,” Margaret tells James). As Mabel recovers from frostbite and injury at the Camerons’ home, her presence eventually starts to bring James and Margaret back together. Then, the tragic death of another townsperson threatens to tear all of their lives apart. A hardhearted and ambitious police sergeant is willing to do anything—even frame an innocent man like James’ good friend Stanley MacIntyre—to get credit for solving the crime. The investigation that follows has the potential to reveal the secrets of everyone in town, including James and Mabel. MacLeod tells an ultimately heartwarming tale, albeit one littered with plenty of upsetting moments. The town is populated with enough distinct characters and historical details to come right off the page and swallow the reader whole. But once the central mystery is solved, the book continues to ramble slowly onward like a lovable but long-in-the-tooth dog. It’s nice to see how the characters’ lives progress following these momentous events, but without the mystery to drive the plot forward—and with numerous jumps forward in time—it’s harder to stay engaged. Even more tragedies inevitably strike, and despite the story’s focus on positive themes such as faith, friendship, and compassion, it’s difficult to remain upbeat while reading about so many bad things happening to good people. Fortunately, Mabel and James are such delightful characters that readers should find themselves sticking with them until the bittersweet end.

This heartfelt historical novel about a homicide in the Canadian Maritimes is often hard to get through—but equally hard to put down.

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4602-7217-6

Page Count: -

Publisher: FriesenPress

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

bookshelf

Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

bookshelf

Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.