A gritty and sometimes-uncomfortable war story set against the Battle of Fort Donelson.
A Union sharpshooter must deal with a prostitute, a distrustful Quaker, and a ruthless Confederate captain in the second edition of Gabhann’s 2015 Civil War novel, the first book in a trilogy.
Kentucky, 1862. Lt. James Harper, a crack shot and veteran of the Mexican War, proudly serves with 1st Iowa Mounted Infantry. However, instead of climbing the ranks, he wallows as the battalion adjutant, “a desk job more suited to an accountant than to a man who had spent eight years as a United States marshal in the territories beyond the Missouri River.” Even a moment of bravery in which he saves the life of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is tainted by the behavior of his men, who disobeyed Harper’s order to leave the wounded son of a Union colonel behind. His battalion is now stationed near the city of Paducah, where Harper shares the bed of 15-year-old prostitute Katie Malloy. Her life as a saloon girl began after her alcoholic father cruelly sold her to the brothel owner. Katie will have to learn quickly if she’s to survive the war, a feat that may be harder for her than for the soldiers she beds. For Harper, opportunity comes in the form of a chance to train 40 men as sharpshooters before leading them into battle. The only problem is that the men don’t like or trust Harper, including the giant Quaker farm boy Corp. Gustav Magnusson. When Harper and his men are captured by the Confederates, they find themselves under the sadistic command of Capt. Anderson Bell, who does not feel any obligation to keep the Yankee prisoners alive. In this installment of the series that continues with Harper’s Rescue (2017), Gabhann re-creates the events surrounding the Union victory in the Battle of Fort Donelson in stark imagery: “Night brought quiet from the gunfire, a quiet broken only by the moans of injured men left behind on the battlefield. A full moon illuminated the valley and backwater where the Rebel cavalry had retreated earlier. Dark lines in the snow revealed the locations of roads and streams.” The sections about Katie sit oddly against those of Harper and Magnusson, and they veer at times into exploitative territory. As far as communicating the myriad motivations of soldiers and the brutality of warfare—both on the battlefield and off—the book presents a darkly intriguing look at this perilous moment in the Western theater.
A gritty and sometimes-uncomfortable war story set against the Battle of Fort Donelson.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7343974-0-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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