A solid, well-written novel of relationships and growth.
In this domestic novel set in 20th-century Nigeria, Oyinsan tells the story of Oyinkan and Kole, their troubled marriage, and Oyinkan’s relationship with the grandmother who raised her and the mother who largely abandoned her.
In the book’s opening chapter, Oyinkan and Kole’s separation ends as they rush their son Moyo to the hospital after Kole accidentally injures him. The narrative then flashes back to Oyinkan’s childhood, growing up in her grandmother’s house. When her grandmother dies, Oyinkan is sent to live with her mother’s family, where she is treated as a distant relative because her half siblings have no idea they have a sister. Oyinkan falls in love with Kole and gives birth to Moyo soon after they marry, setting aside her own aspirations to work as a typist to care for her son. As Kole’s construction business grows, the couple’s marital tensions increase. Eventually, Oyinkan leaves him, moving into the house she inherited from her grandmother and starting a construction business of her own. Oyinkan finds her grandmother’s diary and learns about the complexities of the woman who raised her and the woman who gave birth to her, developing a more solid sense of herself in the process. Oyinsan is a strong writer, presenting a well-developed voice and inventive descriptions (“Her colors were the tones of gaiety, of vibrant youth, of laughter and life itself”). The diary sections, textual interludes in Oyinkan’s tale, are engrossing and effective, adding texture to the novel. The Nigerian setting is well imagined, full of Yoruba dialogue translated in footnotes. While readers may grow frustrated as Oyinkan and Kole’s home life becomes more and more dysfunctional, Oyinsan does a good job of rendering the entire cast as both plausible and sympathetic, delivering an ultimately satisfying resolution to the many conflicts that arise.
A solid, well-written novel of relationships and growth.Pub Date: May 23, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4610-0298-7
Page Count: 344
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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