A rich, moving, and satisfying tale of a woman engaged at last with the great mysteries of love and life. Beautifully...
An incandescent debut, and bestseller in Britain, luminously details transforming encounters that change a lonely spinster's life when she decides to live in Venice.
Julia Garnet, a retired teacher who has never been in love, seems to belong to that group of disappointed women trapped in the bleak lives that Anita Brookner's readers know so well. But Miss Garnet, soon Julia to everyone she meets, is more robust and adventurous. And she's not exactly conventionally middle-class either: she's a communist and an atheist who disapproves of wealth, religion, and sensual beauty. But much changes when Harriet, the teacher she's lived with in London, dies and Julia decides to go to Venice for six months. There, as she steps off her water taxi at the Campo Angelo Raffael to move into the apartment she's rented, she notices, high up on the Campo's church, statues of an angel, a boy, and a dog. She soon learns that they represent the story from the Apocrypha of Tobias and the Angel Raphael, who exorcised the demons from Tobias's wife Sara (the ancient story is told in sections paralleling the changes in Julia's life). Formerly shy and reserved, Julia now makes friends with her landlady and her son Nicco; an American couple; a charismatic monsignor; and the handsome Carlo, an art historian with whom she falls in love. As she explores Venice, she meets the mysterious twins Toby and Sara, who are restoring a 14th-century chapel where they've found a painting of the Angel Raphael. When both it and Toby disappear, Julia, though by now disappointed in love, rallies to find the painting, help Sara, and live to the full in the city that has taught her how "to learn and enjoy."
A rich, moving, and satisfying tale of a woman engaged at last with the great mysteries of love and life. Beautifully wrought and impressively wise.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7867-0823-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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