An absorbing novel that radiates historical rigor and emotional astuteness.
A female physicist from an affluent family and a poor engineer begin a fraught romance while working on the Manhattan Project in Robbins’ historical novel.
In 1944, Alice Katz and Caleb Blum begin working on the fiercely secretive Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the tutelage of the famous J. Robert Oppenheimer. They have little in common—she has a doctorate in physics and hails from a wildly wealthy background while his Orthodox Jewish family is so destitute he cannot afford to continue his academic studies in engineering. He works for the Special Engineer Detachment, an outfit often looked down upon as a cohort of expendable grunts, while Alice is handpicked by Oppenheimer as one of his “preferred understudies,” though she still contends with the unabashed chauvinism of her male colleagues. Despite the circumstances that separate them, the pair falls deeply in love; the affair is given room to grow when Alice’s fiancé, Warren, dies serving in the war and she subsequently discovers she is pregnant with Caleb’s child. In this powerful historical narrative, the obstacles to the protagonists’ union are legion, including Caleb’s reluctance to disclose the inauspiciousness of his origins. Robbins artfully creates an atmosphere of world-historical dread—only slowly, and with growing horror, do Caleb and Alice learn the full truth of what they are producing at Los Alamos. The story also charts the forlorn plight of Haruki Sato, a Japanese native of Hiroshima whose entire life is haunted by the atomic monstrosity to which both Caleb and Alice contribute. The novel is spangled with sparklingly insightful portraits of major scientific figures like Oppenheimer, Bohr, and Feynman, and the author demonstrates an impressive command of the relevant science as well. This is a moving blend of fact, fiction, and romance.
An absorbing novel that radiates historical rigor and emotional astuteness.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781639108961
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Alcove Press
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
A top-notch, spooky Regency page-turner.
Two lady novelists are haunted—and not just by thoughts of each other.
Lady Georgiana Cleeve has had enough. She and her mother gave up everything to escape her abusive father, and her writing career keeps them afloat, but lately every time she writes a novel, it's plagiarized before it’s even published by someone calling herself Lady Darling. When, after staking out Belvoir’s Library one morning at dawn, she discovers to her horror that Lady Darling is none other than Catriona Lacey, the daughter of her family’s butler, with whom she was once “hopelessly infatuated.” It turns out that Cat—shocked to see the aristocratic girl she used to pine for—also depends on writing Gothic romances to support her family. Unfortunately, after they part ways in the worst of tempers, they almost immediately see each other again at their publisher’s office, and then at a haunted churchyard, and then, somehow, at a haunted house in Wiltshire where both expected to find inspiration for their next novel. They agree to stay out of each other’s way, but in just a few days, their chemistry has fully reignited. Their first kiss is the “most erotic” experience either has had, but after their second kiss, they find a dead body in the probably haunted garden—and things only get stranger from there. And despite the supernatural happenings and growing danger, they can’t keep their hands off each other, leading both to wonder if a future together might be possible. The third story in the Belvoir’s Library series starts in the bookstore and then, as the women face being haunted by both the paranormal and their pasts, comes alive against the eerie setting. Georgie and Cat are tempted into plenty of scorching-hot moments no matter where they are, and they forge a gripping emotional connection as well. The satisfying ending is topped only by the excellent author’s note, in which readers will be delighted to learn how much of the story was drawn from the historical record.
A top-notch, spooky Regency page-turner.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781250910981
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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