Excellent dialogue, a beautiful story of male love and a thrilling adventure.
Bara weaves a captivating story of intrigue and love in the French island of Corsica.
In 1992, a Senate committee is about to subpoena Chris Jenkins, a high-powered Washington, D.C., attorney. To avoid it, he leaves the country until the issue subsides, arranging for an operative in Ajaccio, France, to meet him. However, his faxed instructions are intercepted by revolutionary Sampiero Bussaglia, who decides to hold Chris hostage to further the aims of the Corsican National Liberation Front. At the airport, Sampiero picks up Chris, who’s oblivious to the fact that he is being held hostage. The two men set out for the mountains, and through their adventures begin to develop feelings for each other. This begins with childlike antics–playfully dousing the other with bubbles in the shower–progressing to frolicking naked in a pool. Guilty feelings surface as the two men begin to fall in love, as this is neither’s first time with same-gender romance. Chris had experimented with gay sex as a teenager with a boy named Josh, but rebuffed Josh’s desire for a commitment. Feeling rejected, Josh enlisted and then died in the Vietnam War. Chris spent the next few decades womanizing and regretting how he treated Josh. Meanwhile, Sampiero had a relationship with Francois, who committed suicide (or did he?) when the romance was made public, devastating Sampiero and indirectly causing him to become a terrorist with the Liberation Front. The story takes a suspenseful turn when other members of the Front disapprove of the kidnapping and plot to kill Sampiero. Chris and Sampiero seek refuge with a Catholic priest named Damien, and they continue to nurture their love for one another. Bara sometimes goes too far to make political points about homosexual love, with Damien espousing debatable–and certainly not Catholic mainstream–views on how the Church once condoned same-sex relationships and marriage. Still, given Bara’s skill at storytelling, the book is a pleasure.
Excellent dialogue, a beautiful story of male love and a thrilling adventure.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4257-5875-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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