A lot happens here—too much really, especially in the last, somewhat improbable chapters—but it’s a definite page-turner....
A woman suffering from early Alzheimer’s finds romance in an assisted living facility while an abandoned wife restarts her life in the intertwined narratives that make up this second novel.
At 38, Anna is an energetic, tart-tongued, motorcycle-riding paramedic. Actually that’s who she was, just before she starts telling us her story. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Anna leaves her husband and winds up in a residential facility in New Jersey called Rosalind House, which caters to frail old people and a couple of memory-challenged younger ones. Anna’s voice feels very true; particularly in the early chapters, she’s still cogent enough to describe her deterioration, and her descriptions are precise and harrowing. The second voice we hear belongs to Eve, 35, who finds employment as a cook/housekeeper at Rosalind House after her highflying financier husband flames out à la Bernie Madoff. Eve and her young daughter, Clementine, must adjust to drastically reduced living circumstances and endure the slings and arrows of those who know what Eve’s husband did. (Clementine narrates a few chapters in a voice that seems less authentic than the other two.) At work, Eve takes a shine to Anna and eventually risks her job to allow Anna to pursue a relationship with Luke, an attractive, young fellow patient. Eve also finds a love interest, a development you’ll spot miles away. Though likable and sympathetic, she’s far more two-dimensional than Anna. Perhaps Hepworth, who got some positive attention for her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Midwives (2015), feared this book would be too grim with Anna as the main focus.
A lot happens here—too much really, especially in the last, somewhat improbable chapters—but it’s a definite page-turner. It’s also uneven, with genuinely poignant moments brushing up against cheesy ones.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-05190-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Although Heller creates with chilling efficiency the bleakness of a world largely bereft of life as we know it, he holds out...
A post-apocalyptic novel in which Hig, who only goes by this mononym, finds not only survival, but also the possibility of love.
As in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the catastrophe that has turned the world into its cataclysmic state remains unnamed, but it involves “The Blood,” a highly virulent and contagious disease that has drastically reduced the population and has turned most of the remaining survivors into grim hangers-on, fiercely protective of their limited territory. Hig lives in an abandoned airplane hangar and keeps a 1956 Cessna, which he periodically takes out to survey the harsh and formidable landscape. While on rare occasions he spots a few Mennonites, fear of “The Blood” generally keeps people at more than arm’s length. Hig has established a defensive perimeter by a large berm, competently guarded by Bangley, a terrifying friend but exactly the kind of guy you want on your side, since he can pot intruders from hundreds of yards away, and he has plenty of firepower to do it. Haunted by a voice he heard faintly on the radio, Hig takes off one day in search of fellow survivors and comes across Pops and Cima, a father and daughter who are barely eking out a living off the land by gardening and tending a few emaciated sheep. Like Bangley, Pops is laconic and doesn’t yield much, but Hig understandably finds himself attracted to Cima, the only woman for hundreds of miles and a replacement for the ache Hig feels in having lost his pregnant wife, Melissa, years before.
Although Heller creates with chilling efficiency the bleakness of a world largely bereft of life as we know it, he holds out some hope that human relationships can be redemptive.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-95994-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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
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