A potentially gripping tale undermined by its frustrating heroine.
A young lawyer neglects her friends and family as she stubbornly tries to help a sex trafficking victim in Carr’s (The Vernazza Effect, 2013) second novel.
Attorney Tara Collins unexpectedly receives a large sum of money as a gift from her newly married best friend Ella. With it, she decides to create a nonprofit foundation within her San Francisco law firm to help those who can’t afford legal aid. Its board is made up of Assistant District Attorney Brett, who happens to be Tara’s secret boyfriend; social worker Chad; and journalist Jordan (who bizarrely reports on both the law firm and the foundation, in a seemingly textbook case of conflict of interest). For the foundation’s fourth case, she convinces the board members to take on Ashlee, a young teen who was found beaten and left for dead in an alley. Ashlee is too frightened to talk, so Tara begins spending nights with her in the hospital and playing private detective in between visits. Her actions begin to concern Brett and her other colleagues, who insist that she involve the police. Some readers will admire the go-it-alone bravado of the workaholic, emotional Tara. Others, however, may be less impressed by her lack of sense as she jeopardizes her relationships as well as the personal safety of everyone around her. She also undermines her chances of putting away a very bad man due to her dogged insistence on solving the case alone. On the surface, it’s a noble cause, but it may become difficult for readers to applaud her as she continues to take misstep after misstep. (Relief comes, however, when the narrative focuses on Alexander, Ashlee’s high-flying pimp.) The novel’s opening and closing chapters are also lengthy and uninspired. However, patient readers may still find a compelling story about surviving forced prostitution here.
A potentially gripping tale undermined by its frustrating heroine.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692201022
Page Count: 412
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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