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PAVEL'S WAR

A heartbreakingly beautiful drama about the wages of survival.

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This final installment of a historical fiction trilogy chronicles the travails of a family uprooted from its Czech home during World War II.

In 1940, Sophie Kohut’s predicament is grim. Having fled Prague, she now lives in London with her 4-year-old son, Pavel, under the constant threat of German air raids. In addition, she’s at perpetual loggerheads with her in-laws, with whom she lodges, Emil and Judit, well-intentioned but also imperious, intrusive, and endlessly judgmental. Meanwhile, Sophie’s husband, Willy, a soldier in the Czechoslovak Army-in-Exile, is stationed in Malpas. He is part of a group of “mutineers” disgruntled by their shameful mistreatment—especially Jews, like Willy, who are ostracized by the British-recognized Czech president, Edvard Beneš. The London Blitz only grows worse, and as a consequence, Emil turns to family friend George Kindell to help him relocate the Kohuts to safer territory. George agrees to orchestrate their flight to Cambridge and even promises to help Willy join the British army, but only if he will vigilantly gather information on Communist sympathizers in his ranks, especially one particularly brutal sort, Leopold Povídka. The family members are ultimately scattered despite their best efforts to remain together—Willy to serve in the British Royal Engineers, Sophie to run a cafe, and young Pavel to live with other children out in the country under the hateful tutelage of his custodian, Mrs. McAlistair. Curtis (Café Budapest, 2018, etc.) magisterially captures the toll war inevitably takes on even the strongest families, a lesson powerfully expressed by Sophie when her frustration with her disapproving in-laws reaches a tipping point: “I admit I’ve changed—just like you. I’m no longer obedient or perfectly behaved—but Willy, Pavel, and I survived. Nazis, hunger, fear, not knowing what to do next.” In addition, Pavel’s callow naiveté supplies a unique roost from which to view human degradation. Like the protagonist in Imre Kertesz’s Fatelessness, he’s totally unencumbered by ideology or historical identity and so experiences his suffering from a perch of unvarnished innocence. Curtis continues to artfully braid literary poignancy with potent historical witness in this achingly realistic tale.

A heartbreakingly beautiful drama about the wages of survival. 

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 465

Publisher: Kurti Publishing

Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2019

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REGRETTING YOU

The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.

When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.

Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.

The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.

Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

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