Greeting-card sentimentality and a jumbled plot undermine Greenwood’s otherwise ambitious novel.
In Greenwood’s debut novel, an American trapped in a loveless marriage travels to Vietnam to meet an intriguing woman he met online.
Jack Kendall is born in 1964, just after the start of the war in Vietnam, and grows up obsessively tracking the trajectory of the conflict and equally obsessed with this mysterious, far-off nation. That fascination never wanes, even into adulthood, and his heart aches whenever he thinks about the nuns and orphans who disappeared during Operation Babylift, a colossal evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States. Despite his success as a technology sales professional, he is profoundly unhappy in his marriage to Silvia, a monstrously selfish woman addicted to drugs, alcohol, and intemperate spending sprees. While surveying online dating profiles, he meets Linh Ngo, a 24-year-old woman—he’s 46 at the time—in Vietnam having struggles of her own, both financial and marital. They enjoy a brief online friendship, Jack sends her some money, and they then lose touch; two years later they reconnect, and Jack resolves to visit Vietnam and meet this woman he believes he can fall in love with. Greenwood chronicles Jack’s relationship with Linh Ngo, one that is rhapsodically romantic but doomed from the start. Meanwhile, Jack invests in a water company and contemplates a permanent move to Vietnam. The author intelligently articulates the indelibly destructive imprint the war left on Vietnam, in particular the suspicions the Vietnamese maintain about not only Americans, but foreign involvement in their affairs in general. At one point, Jack is arrested for “unacceptable public behavior,” which essentially means exploiting a Vietnamese woman’s vulnerability.
However, despite the plot’s brevity, the novel still feels unfocused, as it’s splintered into too many incongruent subplots. Jack battles a “slimly underhanded group of lawyers and bankers” with ties to the criminal underworld in China and Japan as well as a child-trafficking ring led by a former military adviser to the North Vietnamese. Next thing you know, he’s desperately trying to find those nuns involved in Operation Babylift. Subplots like these seem gratuitously grafted onto the main storyline—Jack’s love of Linh Ngo, for example. Also, Jack’s infatuation with Vietnam never fully makes sense—he doesn’t seem all that knowledgeable about the nation or its history, nor does he try to learn the language. One can’t help but wonder if his love of Vietnam is closer to a fetish, an exotic counterpoint to his generally dreary life in America. Still, the principal failing of the book is the author’s writing style, which lacks emotional heft despite being clearly designed to pluck the reader’s heartstrings. Jack’s self-musings seem to be written for a teenage readership: “Should I hug her? Kiss her? Shake her hand? I don’t know! I just need to let it happen.” This overcharged earnestness makes it difficult for one to take seriously Jack’s entry into a torrid and illicit international affair. Greeting-card sentimentality and a jumbled plot undermine Greenwood’s otherwise ambitious novel.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2022
ISBN: 9781638299998
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Austin Macauley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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