A love story that remains gripping until the very last page.
A trader takes his young bride into the perilous Canadian wilderness in this historical romance.
It is the summer of 1884 in the District of Saskatchewan in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Ian McNab, a trader and “granite-jawed” Scot, has taken a wife, to the surprise of all who know him. The beautiful Catherine looks about half McNab’s age and has the power to beguile every man who sets eyes on her. A born loner, McNab requested Catherine’s hand in marriage during their first encounter when visiting his father in southern Ontario. Now he finds himself returning with her to his trading post at the remote Pounding Lake, where he knows she will be utterly out of place. Before even arriving, their relationship is fraught—McNab is rough and impatient with her during lovemaking and considers her an “utter disappointment in bed.” And Pounding Lake is a troubled community surrounded by Native American reserves. Relations with the local Cree are becoming increasingly volatile. The strains are compounded when an already bitter winter worsens. Meanwhile, Catherine is introduced to the dashing Jay Clear Sky, a Cree interpreter who, fearing for her safety, gives her a protection amulet. The first draft of this tale was written by Sluman (Poundmaker, 1967, etc.). It was then rescued from obscurity by her daughter, debut author Somers, who “could not resist the urge to tweak” the story a number of years after her mother’s death. Closely based on the Northwest Uprising of 1885, this book, although a work of fiction, has a strong historical foundation. The engrossing narrative has everything required for a successful historical romance: a strong-willed heroine, a mysterious and forbidden love interest, and a viper’s nest of villains who eye Catherine lasciviously. The tension rises incrementally as the tale progresses, making for a true page-turner. But despite the growing sense of unease, there is also a fastidious attention to detail regarding the beauty of the Canadian wilderness: “She could see the water leaping and flashing, blue-green under the bright sunlight, free at last of the ice and debris that had choked it during the spring runoff.” Some readers may find the developing romance cloying, if unpredictable, but fans of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series will discover a comparable treat here.
A love story that remains gripping until the very last page.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5255-0480-8
Page Count: 253
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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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