A steadily escalating dual plot of romance and action enlivens this tale; a long and satisfying, genre-defying read.
A romantic thriller features a strong-willed corporate attorney’s clash with a genius surveillance expert.
The story of this debut novel centers on forceful and emotionally scarred Alexandria “Alexis” Saunders, senior corporate attorney for AAS, a company run by her father that specializes in providing communications and surveillance equipment and systems for the military. Byron performs a smoothly skillful job of making Alexis a believable combination of personal vulnerability and formidable intelligence. But this mix is so precariously balanced that it promptly begins to fall apart when Alexis meets Brad Scott, the company’s new senior executive vice president of technology and development, a sexy and charismatic genius with five degrees and a personal history almost as complicated as hers. The two experience the jolt of instantaneous attraction that’s standard issue for romance novels; neither is at all what the other expects, and that surprise fuels the highly charged intrigue they feel for each other. And although Byron not infrequently lapses into the purple prose of the genre (“she stole his breath and his heart with that one single kiss,” etc.), she keeps her narrative moving forward, weaving in complications. The breakthrough technology that Brad develops for AAS draws the attention of a host of well-organized enemy operatives. The tech-thriller aspects of the novel kick into high gear and yet manage to live comfortably alongside the escalating romantic heat between Alexis and Scott. The dialogue is often wooden (including internal musings: “If they gained access to the technology on Brad’s computer…They would have power…too much power!”), but the personal tension between the two leads makes up for a multitude of such oversteps, and Byron’s fanciful sci-fi elements are grounded enough to feel gripping. The Christian and mystical elements that come to the fore at the story’s climax feel forced, but as a first novel in a projected series, the book works with an infectious energy.
A steadily escalating dual plot of romance and action enlivens this tale; a long and satisfying, genre-defying read.Pub Date: April 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-39203-4
Page Count: 606
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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