An emotionally affecting and historically edifying tale.
In this historical novel set in the 19th century, a young woman of uncommon musical talent longs for the freedom that’s typically reserved for men.
A year after her mother died, Emily Alden, a precocious 13-year-old, is sent from her native England to New York City and entrusted to the care of the de Koningh family as her perpetually busy father, Lord Alden, attends to his own affairs. She’s achingly lonely but quickly makes friends with Corey de Koningh, a tenderhearted boy who’s one year her junior. The two bond over a shared passion for music—he’s a nimble-fingered pianist, and she wants to learn the violin but is forbidden to do so by her father, who thinks it unbecoming for a girl. Nevertheless, Robert Haussmann, Corey’s music instructor, takes her under his wing and tutors her. They discover that she’s unusually gifted and could go far, if she was only given the opportunity. Years later, while wasting away at an oppressive finishing school, Emily is reunited with both Corey and Robert—the former is still playing piano and composing music, although his father, Klaas, seems to encourage neither. Stark (Twilight Perspectives, 2016) artfully chronicles the intersecting lives of the three musicians, which are complicated by the attraction that both men harbor for Emily. The author masterfully sets the historical stage—the United States as it devolves into the Civil War—and she addresses the issue of slavery with nuance and rigor. Klaas secretly works for the Underground Railroad, and both Corey and Emily end up joining the cause, as well, in a riveting storyline. Emily is a delightfully complex mix of defiance and prudence, as she learns early in life that “there’s a very narrow line to negotiate between freedom and responsibility for women” in her era. Stark’s prose is reliably lucid and consistently faithful to the setting, although it’s sometimes a touch saccharine: “ ‘Why can’t we let each other alone?’ [Emily] whispered, shuddering. ‘The world might be a better place if it had only artists living in it.’ ”
An emotionally affecting and historically edifying tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9975239-3-5
Page Count: 385
Publisher: Momentum Ink Press
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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