An energetic, full-dress period novel, Maxwell's first, constructed from the adventures of Henry VIII's doomed second queen, mother of Elizabeth I of England. Here, a recently crowned Elizabeth finds her dead mother's diary, discovering not only a legacy of maternal love but the idea that Virgin Queens should stay that way. The story blasts off with a Tudorian ``God's death!'' roared by Elizabeth, but Maxwell doesn't generally weigh the narrative down with archaisms. The dutifully noted battles and political skirmishes of the great powers don't interfere with the upward strides (and missteps) of that peppery commoner, Anne Boleyn. Educated in a French court, and later in England, serving Henry's royal-born Queen Katherine, Anne, to her amazement (and greedy father's delight), is pursued by the King (``He loomed so large, those blue and laughing eyes so bright''). Having been separated from the man she really loved, Anne daringly keeps Henry in courtly pursuit—but out of bed—for six years. Meantime, Henry, determined to change queenly partners, uproots his allegiance to the Pope and creates an English church. The King and Anne marry, but now that the Unattainable has become a marital captive—and a queen unable to produce a son—Henry's frustrations (and desires) prod him to turn elsewhere. Death by execution in the Tower will cut short a life in which the stakes and odds were sky-high. Years later, Elizabeth finds in her mother's diary a pointed message: ``Never relinquish control to any man.'' Those fascinated by the Tudors—those magnificent, truly terrifying political animals—may find the characterizations and the language occasionally too modern. But Anne's straight-from-the- stomacher confessions, and Elizabeth's thundering about, should appeal to all fanciers of imagined portraits of Tudor-era heroines, like the late Eleanor Hibbert's (a.k.a. Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, Jean Plaidy) gallery of royal queens. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-55970-375-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
Categories: HISTORICAL FICTION
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A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
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Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
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Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION
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