An appropriate and high-stakes conclusion to a Civil War saga.
Lt. James Harper and his men are thrown into one of the bloodiest battles in the American Civil War in this, the final volume in Gabhann’s trilogy of historical novels.
Lt. Harper has finally rejoined his First Iowa Volunteers, along with Corp. Gustav Magnusson and nurse (and erstwhile prostitute) Katie Malloy. His new assignment—assistant quartermaster—is once again unbecoming to the highly experienced former deputy federal marshal, prison escapee, and spy for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. It’s campaign season, and the Union Army has pushed deep into Tennessee. After a surprise promotion to captain—which seems to displease most of the men in his battalion—Harper is placed in an administrative position that he hopes, as ever, to parlay into a battle command. Luckily for him, the proximity of the enemy means he doesn’t have to wait long. Magnusson is in a wheelchair after injuries he sustained helping Katie flee her brothel, which prevents him from riding with his skirmishers. He’s beginning to wonder whether rescuing Katie was worth all the trouble. Katie is glad to be free but still terrified of reprisal from her old colleagues. As Harper and Magnusson chafe against their new roles, the inevitable conflict with the nearby Rebel soldiers—who have already drawn Union blood—looms on the horizon, threatening to shatter whatever temporary safety they have found. Gabhann writes with his typical blend of blood, grit, and wry humor: “Silence filled the tent punctuated by the rumble of the distant canons. It was times like these that war seemed surreal to Harper—how the movements and assaults of thousands of men could be understood and planned by three men hunched over a map.” The author writes well about battle, and the novel plays to that strength. Furthermore, the final storylines for Harper and his companions provide the necessary emotional context for the conflict, as well as supplying satisfying conclusions to their character arcs. While the pacing occasionally bogs down, particularly in the book’s first half, this is the strongest novel in the trilogy.
An appropriate and high-stakes conclusion to a Civil War saga.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7343974-4-4
Page Count: 383
Publisher: Natchez Trail Press
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.
The true story of Axis diplomats detained in the U.S. at the start of World War II is transformed into a dazzling historical novel set at a sumptuous West Virginia hotel.
Bestselling YA fantasy author Stiefvater’s adult debut introduces a writer whose prodigious imagination and distinctive prose style have combined to create a novel that will remind readers of why they fell in love with reading in the first place. At its center is the captivating June Hudson, an erstwhile Appalachian orphan who was taken in by the wealthy Gilfoyle family, owners of the Avallon Hotel & Spa, a high-society retreat built over underground mineral springs. At his death, the patriarch bequeathed ownership to his playboy son, Edgar, but made June the general manager, as she had spent her life learning the business—and also shared with Gilfoyle Sr. a rare gift relating to the “sweetwater” springs, a fantastical element of this otherwise realistic novel. Aside from the magical waters and a few other fanciful details, Stiefvater’s fictional world is based on extensive research into high-end hotels of the period, creating a version of luxury so appealing that readers will wish they could check into the Avallon and stay on indefinitely. In fact, the novel revolves around the true meaning of luxury. To June, it has nothing to do with wealth; it is more connected to joy, and to the book’s title: “June had long ago discovered that most people were bad listeners; they thought listening was synonymous with hearing. But the spoken was only half a conversation. True needs, wants, fears, and hopes hid not in the words that were said, but in the ones that weren’t, and all these formed the core of luxury.” Also brilliantly managed is the rest of the ensemble cast: sexy FBI agents; June’s inimitable staff; the delegations of Japanese, Germans, and Italians detained at the hotel, some quite nasty, but among them a strange, special, totally silent child. And on top of all this, a delicious love story!
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593655504
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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