by Nicky Penttila ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
An ambitious and enlightening work of fiction that will satisfy lovers of history and romance alike.
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A comprehensive saga detailing the stories of several characters during the little-discussed Peninsular War.
In 1808, British journalist Samuel Kerr journeys to Corunna, Spain, to follow the British campaign in the country. While there, he meets the Wakefields, a Loyalist family who fled America after the Revolutionary War and who now run a newspaper printing press in the region of Galicia. Kerr quickly forms a bond with the family members, particularly Louisa Wakefield, a young woman whose desire to be a news correspondent matches his own drive to become an editor. Their acquaintance later leads to a charming romance. Fred, Louisa’s brother, is a lieutenant in the British army, and his story as he journeys across the country adds historical depth to the novel. He’s part of an effort to oust Napoleon from Spain, which allows Penttila, the author of An Untitled Lady (2013), to expertly weave in details about the fairly obscure Peninsular War. Over the course of the novel, he delivers a thorough historical saga with delightfully vivid characters. However, the prose only uses evocative language sparingly, which is a shame, as such moments are highlights. For example, when readers first meet Kerr, he’s lamenting the fact that he was passed over for an editor job: “One would have thought a…flexible intellect rated more than a phlegm-hacking presumptive messiah.” Another notable element is the entertaining rapport between Kerr and Louisa, which showcases their sharp intellects and enjoyable senses of humor. Their exchanges add welcome levity to the story so that it never feels too bogged down in historical matters.
An ambitious and enlightening work of fiction that will satisfy lovers of history and romance alike.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-943192-02-1
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Wondrous Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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New York Times Bestseller
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Best Books Of 2015
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National Book Award Finalist
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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