The further adventures of young Tom Chatto, who, following an auspicious series debut in old pro McCutchan's Apprentice to the Sea (1995), proves himself a mariner to be reckoned with. Having learned the ropes during the last days of the great sailing craft, Tom (second son of a well-born Irish Protestant churchman) moves on to steam-powered vessels shortly after the start of the 20th century. Rising through the officer ranks, he achieves second-mate status aboard the Orvega, a British ocean liner bound from Liverpool to Valparaiso. The voyage proves a difficult one for all hands. Influenza breaks out among the huddled masses in steerage, and the Orvega is barred from Madeira, where the captain had hoped to lay up to repair a dysfunctional valve spindle. In the meantime, Tom (who has taken the cruise as much to see his ladylove, the daughter of a wealthy Argentinean cattle rancher, as to advance an already promising career) becomes a target of opportunity for passenger Grace Handley, a lusty grass widow looking for a fresh start in the New World. Although tempted, true-blue Tom resists her efforts to bed him aboard ship and in ports of call along the eastern shore of South America. He soon faces an even sterner test during a rough transit around Cape Horn when his crippled vessel's way is blocked by a foundering windjammer. Charged with taking the derelict in hand in a stormy sea, Tom and his salty salvage crew are forced to call on all the courage and skills they acquired when sailing before the mast as they pit themselves and their battered hulk against wind and wave. Another fine sea story from a master of the difficult game, replete with credibly motivated characters and the lore of a transitional era in the maritime trade.
Pub Date: July 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14410-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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