by Shelly Stratton ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2018
Will the two women put their troubled pasts behind them and find happiness? By the end of this frustrating novel it’s hard...
Delilah Grey, widow of the wealthy Chauncey “Cee” Buford after having started out as his mother's maid, seeks out and takes in women experiencing difficulties to ease her own pain.
Her latest project, Tracey Walters, was abused by her successful husband, just as Delilah was. Tracey got away with her two children but is broke and about to be evicted. Delilah invites her to stay at her beachfront home, Harbor Hill, which she inherited after Cee died decades ago under murky circumstances. Delilah survived not only her marriage, but a murder conviction and subsequent release on appeal, which makes her an outcast. Her only friend seems to be Aidan, the grown son of one of the women she helped. Aidan takes care of Harbor Hill and its grounds and often sleeps with the women who come to stay. This sets up the unlikely scenario that he doesn't try to sleep with Tracey, allowing for conflict when she finds out how he usually behaves and thinks his kindness to her is a prelude to trying to sleep with her, too. The climax of the story is page-turning but requires a fair bit of suspension of disbelief in the buildup; for example, Tracey’s mom encourages her to return to her violent husband and even tells him where she lives. The story centers on domestic abuse as well as racism, classism, and mental illness. All of these are important topics that merit attention in fiction, but Stratton (Between Lost and Found, 2017) dilutes each of them by trying to provide suspense and romance and also cover those things, and doing none of that successfully. That the police never even try to find out who really killed Cee seems unrealistic, as does the complete lack of resources or support for the abused women besides each other.
Will the two women put their troubled pasts behind them and find happiness? By the end of this frustrating novel it’s hard to care.Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1117-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dafina/Kensington
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2018
A tour de force.
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New York Times Bestseller
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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