A story that raises tricky questions about relationships between women and men, the longevity of family ties, and the...
A fast-moving novel from King (The Stones Speak, 2009, etc.) about a woman’s search for self.
As the story opens, a husband tells his wife of 40 years that he’s leaving her for another, younger woman. The suddenness of the news is surprising, and the shock at first unhinges Laura. She’s a 60-year-old grant writer who gave up her shot at a Ph.D. for the sake of her husband Zach’s architecture career. Until now, their life in Oberlin, Ohio, had seemed fulfilling—at least, until she was forced to examine it. After six days of dwelling in an abyss of grief and uncertainty, “without warning, she surfaced.” Laura realizes that she must move on, and readers will follow her eagerly. Instead of looking backward into its protagonist’s hazy past for clues that might have led to the affair, the story travels forward. Laura goes to a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which kick-starts an adventurous series of events. There, she meets intriguing, capricious women; charming, jealous men; and eventually, the firmer side of herself. Using a straightforward, no-frills style that’s light on description, the novel’s main offering is its empowering, new-world/new-self theme. The story careens forward, mostly in a credible way, after launching from a startling revelation. The characters are clearly drawn, and though the headlong pace doesn’t allow them much time to develop, each person is shown to have his or her own secrets. Some lessons are predictable; for example, as much as Laura struggles to learn “how not to be Mrs. Zachary Feldman,” she finds that learning how to be herself is harder. Other lessons, however, hum underneath the surface. How far can she go to fashion a new self before the good parts of the original evaporate in the dry desert air? How can she conceive the boundaries of her self as they cross into and withdraw from others’? Laura’s perspective dominates, but passages from other characters’ points of view reveal how much we all might be living behind partial disguises, even from ourselves.
A story that raises tricky questions about relationships between women and men, the longevity of family ties, and the friendships within literal and symbolic sisterhoods.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1891386435
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Plain View Press
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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