The Wild West earns its name all over again in this lovable chronicle of small-town insanity.
A prodigal daughter returns to her hometown in Montana to make amends; mayhem and hilarity ensue.
When Rachel Flood returns to Quinn, population 956, moving into the ruined trailer bequeathed her by her father, the reception is cool. Her mother, Laverna, who owns a bar called The Dirty Shame, is "surprised that her daughter had shown up to claim the inheritance. Laverna thought of Rachel the same way she thought about the time her appendix had burst—sometimes things could come from inside your body and suddenly betray you, nearly killing you." And that's one of the more positive reactions. Growing up in Quinn, blonde, beautiful Rachel was the town slut, blamed for countless divorces, a murder, and a robbery. Nine years later, she's gotten sober in Alcoholics Anonymous and returned against her sponsor's advice to make amends. The trailer she's inherited is next door to her former best friend, Krystal, who's now shacked up with a horrible, damaged man named Bert, their baby, and Krystal's older child, 12-year-old Jake. Young Jake is debut novelist Fifield's finest creation, his outfits and obsessions (Madonna, Jackie Collins, Erica Kane) laid out in loving detail. "He dressed in satin pajamas, lime in color, and...sprayed his quilt with a bottle of Lady Stetson perfume, another thrift store find, the contents stretched with tap water." Other characters include Black Mabel and Red Mabel—"While Black Mabel dressed to instill fear, Red Mabel would just as soon punch you in the face"; Buley Savage Connor, a morbidly obese, 60-year-old thrift store proprietor; Rocky Bailey, her 30-year-old boyfriend; Martha Man Hands; Jim Number Three; and packs of lesbian silver and talc miners. Several of the above play on The Dirty Shame's women's softball team, whose 1991 season defines the arc of the tale. It includes bar fights and AA meetings, a parade, a wedding, and a black bear, all of which Fifield juggles beautifully until the ending, which feels both inevitable and wrong. Read it anyway.
The Wild West earns its name all over again in this lovable chronicle of small-town insanity.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-9738-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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