Entertaining verse for the Harlequin romance crowd.
Romance, adventure and schmaltz combine in this “epic” tale of lovers caught between worlds.
In the sixth century B.C., the Greek poet Anacreon succinctly summed up the vagaries of affection. “The dice of love,” he wrote, “are madness and turmoil.” In her first book-length work, Vanderbilt transforms this pithy sentiment into a protracted verse saga set in 1910 San Francisco, Maine and aboard various cargo ships. Though comprised of a number of poems ranging in form from sonnets to free verse, the narrative centers on the tortured life of a man who begins to prefer the girl of his dreams to his real-life lover. Grayson, a dashing and wealthy shipping magnate tossed in the midst of a bloody battle with a corporate rival, finds himself increasingly drawn from the pressured world of business to the comfort of his dreams, where the alluring red-haired Lara awaits: “One night, out of sorts and damaged by strain, / He dreamed up a lover and suffered the game.” As Grayson retreats further from his real-time woman and urgent business responsibilities, his connection to reality grows noticeably tenuous: “A shattered glass, it tinkled in his brain, / His eyes flashed and he saw his room again; / Its muted tapestry and soft rouge ground / Where his wine had spilt and caused the broken sound.” Throughout much of the collection, pat rhyme and overblown imagery serve to heighten the melodrama of Grayson and Lara’s otherworldly love, much as drastic life events (shootings, explosions, drownings) propel the tale’s plot to its turbulent conclusion. Occasionally, however, Vanderbilt hits the thematic nail on the head in capturing the sometimes paradoxical nature of intimacy: “Never before had his heart been so laid open / Nor had his life felt so unfree.”
Entertaining verse for the Harlequin romance crowd.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2007
ISBN: 0-9788056-2-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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