An engrossing tale nicely balancing war and peace.
This gripping thriller is about love and the Troubles—the love of a man and woman for each other, for freedom and for Ireland.
Davy McCutcheon, introduced in Pray for Us Sinners (2000), is a bomb maker for the Provisional IRA. He's deeply in love with Fiona Kavanagh, but he's been sentenced to decades in the Maze prison. She immigrates to Vancouver and in time comes to love another man—but her love for Davy never dies. Then, after nine years, Davy and fellow inmates stage a prison break. Unlike some others, Davy decides he's through with violence. All he wants is to reunite with Fiona, which will be a tough task indeed. Never mind that she may have moved on forever. He may not even make it out of Northern Ireland alive, because his comrades insist on using his skills for their dangerous plot to bomb a police barracks. The novel’s setting goes back and forth between Fiona’s Vancouver and Davy’s County Tyrone. Fiona now leads a peaceful life with a decent job and a good man, while Davy may be recaptured or killed at any moment. Both storylines are engrossing, but all the real action is with Davy. The killing, the weapons caches, the plotting and betrayal contrast sharply with the idyllic freedom of a peaceful and quiet Vancouver; the only common feature of both settings is the rain. Although this book is a sequel, it reads well as a stand-alone thriller/love story. Davy wants no part of killing anymore, but the choice may not be his. Can he find love and peace, or must he bomb his way to freedom? Taylor writes in rich physical and cultural detail, holding the reader’s attention right to the end.
An engrossing tale nicely balancing war and peace.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3519-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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
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