Stilted style, lots of expository dialogue, and an utterly predictable plot, from the son of Rosamunde.
Silly soap opera from the author of An Ocean Apart (1999).
Hunky husband Gregor leaves devoted wife Liz for a “wee blonde-haired bombshell” in a tight pink sweater, and Liz retreats to her father’s farm on the island of Fife to think things over. Nathaniel Craig, lonely after his wife’s death, welcomes his middle-aged daughter back. The crux of the story: Nathaniel’s grandson Alex has plans to convert the family land into a golf course, even though they’ve farmed it for over a hundred and fifty years. Liz has her doubts, while Nathaniel would just as soon sell, provided he can continue to live in the farmhouse. Then Liz finds herself attracted to a boarder supplied by her matchmaking father and even goes so far as to comb her hair in a more becoming fashion.. Arthur Kempler is a professor of German, and too old to want sex, but he does desire female companionship and invites lovelorn Liz to Seville, where the two take in the local color. Plans for the golf course are taking shape when Nathaniel meets a new woman: 60-ish Roberta (Bobby) Bayliss, Australian daughter of a Scotland-born tycoon. Bobby is a no-nonsense type and one hell of a golfer. After falling in love in a matter-of-fact way with old Nathaniel, she decides to use the vast fortune her father left her to create the best new links in Britain. Liz returns home with a great tan and blond highlights, only to hear that Gregor has been badly burned in a car accident and that he’s had enough of his wee bombshell, having caught her flirting with another man in a local pub. Can Liz ever forgive him? Take him back? These and other questions are resolved in a ho-hum denouement that will surprise no one.
Stilted style, lots of expository dialogue, and an utterly predictable plot, from the son of Rosamunde.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-26995-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2001
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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