A revealing and contemplative tale about people tied to a wondrous, harsh landscape.
A small coastal Oregon community in the 1960s grapples with a proposed law to make the beaches public land in this novel.
In the tiny hamlet of Kalapuya, The Wave motel is the only place to stay. Kalapuya’s winters are dark; the air is misty; and the wind is so strong it’s hard to stand up straight. But the few local residents who try to eke out a living from the sparse tourism are inextricably tied to the village. Marilyn and Jackson Ryder own the motel but are at odds about an expansion that she thinks they don’t need and can’t afford. Leah Tolman, a baker, is a proponent of a new bill in the state legislature that will make all the beaches public property. Elliot Yager, an aging lighthouse keeper, is opposed and does not want strangers tramping around on his land. While issues like the Vietnam War hang over the characters’ heads, highly local topics about Kalapuya dominate the discussions. It’s a curious place to live (“What’s wrong with us, Marilyn asked, to live here year-round?”), but the residents have caves to explore, colorful agates to collect, and their own pseudo geyser, Little Faithful, to enjoy. The strain of the business troubles, though, begins to peck away at folks’ relationships, and Marilyn and Jackson’s son, Tim, disappears, adding another layer of problems to an already burdened community. King’s novel is beautifully immersed in the marvels of the bleak and moody landscape and develops the characters enough to give insights into their reasons for wanting to remain in this difficult place. The consequential time period, with the new law’s approval in the balance, makes every business and personal decision by the characters a meaningful one. There is a fluidity to the writing that sometimes works well, but in other instances, it results in a welter of names in a paragraph or thoughts that change direction quickly, making the narrative hard to follow.
A revealing and contemplative tale about people tied to a wondrous, harsh landscape.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950843-48-0
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Parafine Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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