A family drama that remains warm and witty, despite its weighty subject matter.
A revelation opens old wounds and spurs new questions for a fiercely independent reporter in Danby’s debut novel.
While paging through a diary belonging to her recently decreased mother, London Herald journalist Rose Haldane learns she was adopted as a child. “I spent my whole childhood wanting Mum to be pleased with me, but she never was,” Rose tells her grandmother. “Every time she looked at me she must have seen nothing of herself to love.” Using the investigative skills she honed as a reporter, Rose sets out to find her biological parents, declaring: “Until I do, I don’t know where I belong.” The complications that ensue are predictable. To Rose’s disappointment, record-keeping practices and privacy standards were very different when she was born in 1968, slowing her search. Yet for others in Rose’s life, the process moves much too quickly. The discovery of the adoption forces Rose’s sister, Lily, to confront fears of infertility. And Rose’s adoptive father, John, is hesitant to delve into the past—a reluctance Rose can appreciate if not quite accept. Although she wants the truth, she also has misgivings. What if her biological parents are criminals or dead? What if she is the product of rape? And perhaps most importantly: if she isn’t Rose Haldane, who is she? Danby does an able job of tackling those queries and more with honesty and empathy. Although the story centers on Rose, several chapters are written from the perspective of Lily, whose own arc reveals itself slowly throughout the book and, ultimately, provides a surprise ending. Unfortunately, the rest of Danby’s cast is thinly realized. Rose’s love interest, Nick, seems to function only as a plot device. And while intriguing in broad strokes, Danby shies away from dipping too deeply into what could have been a fascinating subplot—the motivations of Rose’s adoptive and biological mothers. That’s a shame because all the other elements necessary for a family potboiler are here.
A family drama that remains warm and witty, despite its weighty subject matter.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9931134-1-3
Page Count: 442
Publisher: Beulah Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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