Sometimes Charlotte now, sometimes Clare in 1918, borne back and forth by the boarding school cot. . . "are we so very alike? Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as that?" Then, on a day when Charlotte is Clare (and Clare is Charlotte), she and Clare's younger sister Emily, who knows, must move from the dormitory to lodgings and she must remain in the past. Which, in living with the stuffy Chisel-Browns, their fluttery spinster daughter Agnes and her memories of dead brother Arthur, becomes very much her world: playing with their spillikins and marbles, she might be Agnes indulging Arthur as she is Clare coping with cheeky Emily as she has been older sister to Emma at home. But, she learns from Agnes, Arthur was less than a hero and not unlike Charlotte: the pattern is broken. On Armistice night, literally bedlam, the girls go out alone; as punishment, they are recalled to the dormitory where Charlotte will be in a position to change places with Clare. She leaves with some regret, returns with some relief: schoolmate Margaret, the brilliant erratic one, has known the difference though she cannot define it. And they could not have been alter egos, older enigmatic Sarah Reynolds unwittingly discloses: Clare had died of flu at the war's end and Emily, Sarah's mother, had been waiting for Charlotte to arrive. As she now writes her, enclosing Agnes' and Arthur's playthings. This fills in for Charlotte the time spent by Emma in Winter (1966), which also embodies a time-spanning search-for-self. But Charlotte Sometimes is less involuted; less obsessed, less somber than either Emma or its predecessor The Summer Birds; girls can read it (without knowing the others) as a ghost story laced with boarding school fiendishness and healthy who-am-I's.
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1969
ISBN: 978-1-68137-104-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1969
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ideal for readers seeking perspectives on war, with a heavy dash of romance and touch of fantasy.
A war between gods plays havoc with mortals and their everyday lives.
In a time of typewriters and steam engines, Iris Winnow awaits word from her older brother, who has enlisted on the side of Enva the Skyward goddess. Alcohol abuse led to her mother’s losing her job, and Iris has dropped out of school and found work utilizing her writing skills at the Oath Gazette. Hiding the stress of her home issues behind a brave face, Iris competes for valuable assignments that may one day earn her the coveted columnist position. Her rival for the job is handsome and wealthy Roman Kitt, whose prose entrances her so much she avoids reading his articles. At home, she writes cathartic letters to her brother, never posting them but instead placing them in her wardrobe, where they vanish overnight. One day Iris receives a reply, which, along with other events, pushes her to make dramatic life decisions. Magic plays a quiet role in this story, and readers may for a time forget there is anything supernatural going on. This is more of a wartime tale of broken families, inspired youths, and higher powers using people as pawns. It flirts with clichéd tropes but also takes some startling turns. Main characters are assumed White; same-sex marriages and gender equality at the warfront appear to be the norm in this world.
Ideal for readers seeking perspectives on war, with a heavy dash of romance and touch of fantasy. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-85743-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer.
Even a war driven by gods can’t sever communication between journalist lovers Iris and Roman in this steampunk-adjacent romantic adventure.
A prologue sets the scene: Dacre, a god strummed to sleep by magic in Divine Rivals (2023), will not slumber forever. His willingness to wage war to acquire more powerful magic leads him to lay waste to entire towns, and Inkridden Tribune journalist Iris Winnow and war correspondent Roman Kitt can no longer be assured the other is safe—or even still alive. In Iris’ world of cigarette smoke, copper pipes, and driving goggles, colleagues affectionately call each other by their last names, watch each other’s backs, and face danger on the front lines. Though Underling Correspondent Roman is traveling with Dacre’s army, he questions why he was healed of his grievous wounds, while at the same time, he gradually recovers memories of Iris and recalls that she was special to him. Their magically connected typewriters allow for the rediscovery of their love and for communicating potentially deadly information about the invasion of Hawk Shire. The story primarily unfolds from Iris’ and Roman’s viewpoints, and while the prose occasionally uses well-worn phrases, Anglophiles will particularly enjoy the worldbuilding, and returning readers will welcome appearances from Capt. Keegan Torres; her wife, Marisol; and Dacre’s archnemesis—and wife—the goddess Enva. Main characters present white.
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250857453
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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