A novel with a strong female lead and plenty to satisfy history buffs.
Pearce (The Promise of Fate, 2015) offers an offbeat, romantic Western adventure that starts in 1849.
Mariah Hardwick was raised in St. Joseph, Missouri, where her father owns a dry goods store. Con man Earl Penngrove comes to town, sets his sights on Mariah, and courts her, promising her a life of excitement exploring the territory past the Great Plains to what Mariah and her mom call “The Beyond.” The mother and daughter share a passion for the journals of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, which they read aloud to each other during quiet evenings. It breeds a restlessness in Mariah, which leads her to marry Earl. Together, they join a wagon train heading west. But then Earl runs off and is killed on the journey, and Mariah, unwilling to turn back, pools her resources with Hetty Samuels, a recent widow who’s also determined to reach the West Coast. They head to Remington River in Northern California, where Mariah meets an elderly, Chinese shopkeeper, Zhao (aka the “Old Mandarin”), who, in turn, introduces her to a mysterious Mexican man named Pajaro Mendonca, who has a reputation as an outlaw. Her involvement with the two men will put her in grave danger—and provide her with the thrill of her life. The bulk of the novel consists of Mariah’s travel journal, and she also drops in sometimes-quirky passages from Lewis and Clark’s real-life journal. Readers may find themselves skimming these latter excerpts, however, in order to get back to the dramatic action. Pearce’s descriptions of the political machinations surrounding white American land grabs from the “Californios”—people of Mexican heritage who were born in California before it became part of the United States—have a poignant currency. The author’s carefully honed prose captures the cadence and atmosphere of the period, while also offering two well-drawn characters in Mariah and Pajaro. The concluding third of the narrative, set in 2015 and involving modern characters looking into Mariah and Pajaro’s past, is engaging but will leave readers with lingering questions.
A novel with a strong female lead and plenty to satisfy history buffs.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-943588-77-0
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
