Ryman's sequel to Olivia and Jai (1990)a tale of lust, racism, and honor in the British Rajhas noble intentions but lacks the subtlety and restraint to realize them. The story of the Raventhornes continues in 1870 with Olivia, in a laudanum haze, mourning the memory of her beloved Jai, a Eurasian revolutionary hanged 13 years earlier for his participation in the Bibighar massacre, a savage attack on hundreds of British women and children. The massacre's specter hovers over Olivia's son and daughter: Despite their wealth, both Amos and Maya are shunned in Calcutta, branded as half-castes unacceptable in either British or Indian society. Maya's prospects improve when Christian Pendlebury appears on the scene, new to India's civil service and impervious to local prejudices. The couple's romance, however, faces opposition from all sides. Olivia doubts Christian's fidelity; Christian's father, Sir Jasper (who has vile secrets and schemes of his own), is repelled by Maya's impure Eurasian lineage; and Kyle Hawkesworth, a dissident promoting Eurasian liberties, views Maya's romance as an attempt to escape her painful heritage. Among needless plot machinations is the arrival of Alistair Birkhurst, Olivia's vengeful son from a loveless first marriage, determined to usurp Amos at every turn; the story, though, gains cohesion from Olivia's unremitting search for the truth concerning Jai's death: the eventual exposure of a government coverup proves his innocence. Finally, the revelation of deadly secrets, a suicide, attempted murder, arson, near insanity, and brotherly reconciliation bring all to a close with breakneck speed, leaving Maya still unmarried but finally content with her identity, a happy future promised. The pleasures offered by distinctive characters and a fine sense of period mores are diminished by a convoluted plot and painful overwriting (``the mauve fingers of dawn pushed aside the indigo shrouds of night''). (First printing of 35,000)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13200-X
Page Count: 640
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Original and earnest, informed both by human limitation and human potential.
The author returns to the Arkansas setting of They Tell Me of a Home (2005).
It’s 1941, and Gustavus and Emma Jean Peace have just had their seventh child. Gus had hoped to be through having babies. Emma Jean—disappointed with six boys—is determined to try one last time for a girl. When God doesn’t give her a daughter, she decides to make one herself. Naming the new baby “Perfect” and blackmailing the midwife to aid her in her desperate deception, Emma Jean announces the birth of a girl. For eight years, Emma Jean outfits her youngest child in pretty dresses, gives her all the indulgences she longed for in her own blighted girlhood and hides the truth from everyone—even herself. But when the truth comes out, Emma Jean is a pariah and her most-treasured child becomes a freak. It’s hard to know quite what to make of this impassioned, imperfect novel. While another writer might have chosen to complement the sensationalism of his scenario with a tempered style, Black narrates his tale in the key of melodrama. He devotes a considerable number of pages to Emma Jean’s experience as the unloved, darker (and therefore ugly) daughter, but since no amount of back story can justify Emma-Jean’s actions, these passages become redundant. And, most crucially, Black builds toward the point when Perfect discovers that she’s a boy, but seems confused about what to do with his character after this astonishing revelation. At the same time, the author offers a nuanced portrait of an insular community’s capacity to absorb difference, and it’s a cold reader who will be unmoved by his depictions.
Original and earnest, informed both by human limitation and human potential.Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-58267-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
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