A bit heavy on wish fulfillment, this vivid novel is still a satisfying read.
A South Carolina woman dreams of moving to New York City in this debut novel.
Edwards’ (Some Favors, 2011) story introduces readers to the heroine, Nadine Carter Barnwell, born to a good family in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, where all is not well. Her autocratic father, Sam, has become even more so since Nadine’s mother died. Close to college graduation, Nadine is determined to head to New York and fulfill her dream of becoming a successful modern dancer. This is bad enough in Sam’s practical view, but she plans to arrive there with her boyfriend, Frank Prescott, an aspiring actor. Thankfully, Nadine’s Aunt Amelia, a wise earth-mother type, runs interference and counsels Nadine to follow her heart. Then Frank gets a small movie role, his big break, and leaves, promising to return. Meanwhile, Nadine has become pregnant with Frank’s child, but the baby is stillborn and only Nadine, Aunt Amelia, and Uncle Hamp know of this chapter in her life. Nadine finally moves to New York, accompanied by her dancer friend Deni Hansen. Babes in the woods, they escape many unsavory and even dangerous characters but eventually life improves. One of Nadine’s guides is Father Benjamin Vincent Dunlap, a paraplegic gay priest—she is never without wise counsel. She winds up in the world of the theater and meets, and marries, Colin Bennett, a successful director. They have a loft in SoHo. Life is good. Then comes a letter that threatens to smash their comfortable existence to smithereens. There follows an audacious plot resolution, but the reader should be spellbound as it unfolds. Then the expected denouement wraps things up nicely, or almost. Edwards writes superbly and the plot moves briskly. The narrative offers evocative descriptions of both the historic Lowcountry (“From the marsh, an egret fluttered its wings in slow motion and lifted into the air. The smaller birds, smartly tucked in the shade of the palmettos, called out to whoever listened”) and glamorous New York (“Sometimes the city just popped out of the darkness like a 3-D movie. From this vantage point, Manhattan looked like a fairyland, the place Dorothy and her friends were searching for”). And there are juicy subplots, such as Deni’s fall and redemption. What starts out as chick lit turns delightfully surprising.
A bit heavy on wish fulfillment, this vivid novel is still a satisfying read.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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