A slight story about three girlhood friends, now in midlife crisis, who take a London holiday that miraculously takes care of all their problems. Reunited just outside of St. Louis for a funeral, Julia, a hardened New York interior designer; Margo, a recently divorced schoolmarm; and society lady Les can see clearly through each others— threadbare facades of happiness. Through flashback we learn of the three women’s youth: how Les became pregnant to catch Harry, the richest college boy in town, how studious Margo entered into a self-sacrificing marriage to an academic, and how Julia’s fierce determination to leave provincial life fueled her relentless drive for success—and how, though all goals were achieved, the women are unfulfilled by their long-ago fantasies of perfection. When a random act of violence puts Margo out of commission and her arm in a sling, the three decide to visit London. They stay with a Mrs. Smith-Porter, a mysterious woman with an invented identity who serves as their fairy godmother. Mrs. Smith-Porter (whose oh-so-tasteful and elite bed and breakfast is furnished with exhaustively described antiques) introduces Julia to Hugh, a roguishly handsome antiques dealer, and’surprise!—a landed lord, whom she falls quickly in love with. Margo also has an opportunity to fix her life when her surly teenage daughter runs away (the girl tagged along to rendezvous with her boyfriend, studying abroad) and her ex-husband and his’surprise!—male lover come to sort things out, allowing Margo the closure she needed to get on with her life, which she promptly does by hooking up with a widowed London doctor. Which leaves Les, whose terminal ennui is erased when Mrs. Smith-Porter is accidentally killed by a speeding truck and Les decides to stay in London, too, taking over the B&B business and escorting socialites like herself around town. A thoroughly silly, predictable tale from a prolific YA author.
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-87368-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
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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