Ambitious, engrossing, full of melodramatic thunder.
A richly imagined answer to a vexing question: Why did the mighty ships of the Spanish Armada fail in their mission?
Finney, the Cambridge-educated author of dazzling Elizabethan-era historicals (Unicorn’s Blood, 2001, etc.), swashbuckles right into the story: as Philip of Spain threatens to take England and all its riches by force, the equally bellicose English plan their defense. Alas, they lack sufficient saltpeter for the manufacture of gunpowder; English dealers in armaments may well be indirectly supplying the Spaniards, and Queen Elizabeth’s court is crawling with Papist traitors and spies of all stripes. Is Simon Anriques—a Jew born in the New World, known in England as Simon Ames, and seemingly her Majesty’s loyal servant—really a double agent? Just ask the pious Portuguese torturer into whose hands he falls and his silent minions, who pour gallons of water down Anriques’s gagging throat, stopping just before his belly bursts. (Squeamish souls take note: Finney relishes brutality—the galley scenes, in which Anriques later figures, are rife with flogging, festering wounds, more torture, and a wee touch of forced sodomy.) Anriques’s African slave, Merula, tends to his sickly wife Rebecca and offers incantatory, noble-savage speeches when not casting spells inspired by her bloodthirsty personal deity, Lady Leopard. Merula is able to call down terrible storms from the indifferent heavens, and Rebecca herself manages to blow up a galleon, with the aid of Thomasina de Paris, a wonderfully clever dwarf—in fact, a court fool to Queen Elizabeth. Pursued by English fire-ships, the Armada is routed in shameful defeat. In an epilogue, Finney admits to making up some of the details, but who cares? This is fiction—and the gorgeous, carefully wrought prose carries all before it.
Ambitious, engrossing, full of melodramatic thunder.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-31285-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
