Charming, wily Luther Kelly (Kelly Blue, 1991, etc.) follows orders from a blackmailing Theodore Roosevelt—orders that will take him around the world via Cuba, South Africa, and the Philippines. Mohandas Gandhi, Lady Randolph Churchill and son, William Howard Taft, Butch Cassidy and Sundance, and Philippine patriot Emilio Aguinaldo are among the real-life figures who cross the path of western scout and extremely reluctant US Army Major Luther ``Yellowstone'' Kelly as he does the bidding of America's most ambitious imperialist—the man he calls ``Teethadore.'' The future president persists in sending Kelly, now in his late 40s, to every trouble spot on earth to check out the possibilities for imperial interests. Kelly and Roosevelt are actually in harness in Cuba, where Kelly, as usual, saves the Rough Rider's bacon. Kelly has one politically unrelated and thoroughly profitable escapade, a trek with his San Francisco Chinese tailor to recover a pure jade boulder, the profits from which set Kelly up for life. Kelly sets out to escort the fabulous rock to China but is sidetracked by a typhoon in mid-Pacific and winds up in the middle of the Boer War- -where he runs into his old South African flame, his son Dirk (of whose existence he had been unaware), Young Winston, and Young Winston's mum. Lady Randolph is now Mrs. Cornwallis-West and busy as she can be running a hospital ship. Of course, she's not too busy to minister to the attractive Mr. Kelly for the second time in her life. And Mr. Kelly is certainly not too busy for Lucretia Sams, the gorgeous adulteress he meets on duty in the Philippines.... The ironic ``aw-shucks'' prose style that never lets up will not be to everyone's taste, but Kelly's ribald adventures can usually wear down the resistance of even the most cynical reader as history is revised with a vengeance.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-517-58285-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1992
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...
Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.
By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04734-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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