A folk tale–style novel set in medieval China, but readers may want more to hold on to.
In her novel, Gurian adopts a mythlike tone while incorporating historical events into the story of a young girl in 13th-century China under Mongol rule.
Little Ai and her mother, seamstress Sui San, join a troupe of actors when all Chinese are expelled from the Mongolian capital following an assassination. They travel across China, observing the friendships and rivalries of the actors, slowly becoming part of the extended family, until Sui San goes missing and is presumed dead. The troupe disbands when they reach their destination, and Little Ai is left with a neglectful aunt. The narrative has a folk tale–like quality, from its formal dialogue—“The heir to the throne has returned suddenly in order to render sacrifice to the gods. He demands your presence. Do not delay carrying out the command of the one who sends for you”—to its vivid depiction of a bygone world: “Peasants in straw sandals drove their donkeys which were hardly visible underneath tall baskets full of silk cocoons. Small-time merchants were screaming in various voices; wandering chefs were clattering their dishes; a fortuneteller was setting up his tent by a mat on which a doctor had laid out his medicines for skin and eye diseases.” Chapter titles (“How the Lamp Went Out Three Times,” “How Little Ai Met Her Big Brother”) complement the folk-tale feel as well. The plot is less satisfying, with many chapters presenting minor conflicts and adventures that have little impact on the ultimate resolution. Titular Little Ai is present for much of the action, but she remains in the background, displaying no evolution over the course of the narrative and offering little emotional connection to the reader. Take, for instance, her response to Sui San’s apparent death, several chapters later: “I haven’t seen Mother in her coffin, and therefore I don’t believe it. My daughterly duty is to fulfill Mother’s will, even if she isn’t alive.”
A folk tale–style novel set in medieval China, but readers may want more to hold on to.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5174-1390-3
Page Count: 200
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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