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THE SEVENTH STONE

Name: THE SEVENTH STONE
Author: Nancy Freedman
ISBN: 0-525-93424-3

by Nancy Freedman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 17, 1992

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From the coauthor of 1947's hugely popular Mrs. Mike comes this tale about the feverish fortunes of four generations of a Japanese family—a story that, with its heroics, outsize characters, and Westernized cultural exotica, has considerably more drive and appeal than Freedman's others since (Prima Donna, 1981, etc.). The Sanogawa family—and all of Japan, it seems—are euphoric at the start of WW II: ``the supremacy of the white man in Asia is done.'' Meanwhile, although saddened that the family elders placed him in his father's factory rather than at war, Noboru Sanogawa, at 18, is delighted with Momoko, the bride chosen for him. But the promising marriage, at the start of which the dutiful Momoko almost admits indecorous feelings of love (``Love, she had been taught, was for the geisha''), is doomed—as is Noboru, who chooses a warrior's death as a kamikaze. Later, Momoko and Noboru's son Akio, twice rejected—by death and then by his stepfather's unwilling divorce—contains a rage that, channeled into acts of cruelty and guile, will fuel a financial empire. But after the decimation of the family during the Occupation and the rise of the wily Akio, a different war is about to be waged: ``The swords of the samurai were replaced by the spread of double-entry bookkeeping...now it was the Japanese who bankrolled the increasing U.S. debt.'' Groomed to serve their father's international holdings are weak son Juro and daughter Miko, who's educated in the technologies and cultures of both East and West. Finally, by odd twists of fate and Akio's tortured perfidy, the one survivor remains to unite the two cultures. With a pleasingly soft-spoken narrative reporting monstrous events, and an energetic appreciation of the general subtleties of Japanese interchanges of speech and gesture, plus some not-too- subtle political commentary—a solid mix of rue and woo, high- minded deeds, and a touch of decadence. Addictive.

Pub Date: April 17, 1992

ISBN: 0-525-93424-3

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.