An entertaining chronology of an infamous ghost and her interactions with European royalty through the centuries.
Debut author Swan explores the legend of the ghost known as the White Lady in a story that mixes historical fact and fiction.
In 13th-century Germany, 29-year-old Countess Cunigunde von Orlamunde is already a widowed mother of two, having wed at 16 a man who died at 55. She enjoys a brief liaison with the burgrave Albert the Handsome, but his parents oppose the match. The distraught countess takes to her bed with her feverish sons. When they die, she’s accused of murder, walled up in a castle dungeon and left to die of hunger and thirst. In subsequent years, members of the House of Hohenzollern witness her ghostly image—a walking, maggot-ridden corpse that they perceive as an omen of impending death. In 1701 Berlin, precocious young Frederick William conducts an informal expedition to find the White Lady’s remains and bury them, but she continues to haunt the family until 1914. The book is an imaginative look at royals’ behind-the-scenes behavior, replete with infighting, jealousy, insults and abuse. It presents a series of vignettes depicting royal family life; for example, at one point, Lt.-Gen. Prince Louis Ferdinand’s mother encourages him to join the army, noting that his death would please both his parents. It also examines the circumstances surrounding the White Lady’s spectral appearances, offering plausible conjecture on why the countess wasn’t at rest. Although she’s a terrifying apparition to sentries (they often faint or flee) and the public at large, she doesn’t frighten on the page, although some may shiver at the supernatural passages. The book has much to say about the long-term effects of cruelty and the blessing of forgiveness. In structure and scope, however, it lacks the sweep and emotional impact of in-depth historical fiction. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, has a brief cameo near story’s end, but it adds little to an otherwise lively narrative.
An entertaining chronology of an infamous ghost and her interactions with European royalty through the centuries.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989951005
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Here Be Dragons Press LLC.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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