British TV writer Gallagher makes his US debut in this neo-gothic tale of an unhappy girl who's neglected by her often absent father, who's bent on returning to her highly unsuitable mother—and who runs away from home in the company of a child killer. It's not surprising that 11-year-old Marianne Cadogan, left for days with an unsympathetic housekeeper while her distant father Patrick is away on business, would turn for companionship to Ryan O'Donnell, the scavenger who rescued her and her dog from a sudden squall outside her isolated house. Despite Ryan's repeated truculent warnings, she keeps returning to him—and, when she's finally worn out with grief and loneliness, begs him to go with her to Germany in search of Patrick's estranged wife Annaliese. She doesn't know (and for a long time neither do we) that Ryan's done serious prison time for murdering another young girl years ago, or that Patrick left Annaliese abruptly five years before because he found out she was into wholesale sexual humiliation with a white slaver. So we've got Marianne threatened by a companion who has a long history of homicidal mental disturbance, headed toward a mother whose friends would love to get their hands on her, and pursued by a father determined to kill her protector (if that's what he is). Something's got to give, and it's Annaliese, whose violent death pushes Gallagher's tale over the edge into chop-chop action before the preordained uplifting fade-out. The title says it all. As in disaster movies, whatever may happen to the good guys, the bad guys are sure to be punished in this swift- moving, professional midbrow pulp.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-345-38512-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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