A winning trifecta for cozy enthusiasts: a ghost story, a murder mystery, and a fresh romance.
A spirit supposedly haunts a run-down house in New Hampshire in this novel.
In Marini’s (Schmuel’s Journey, 2015, etc.) sequel, new couple Sam Miller and Martha Sanborn wonder why her brother, Bart, and his ne’er-do-well childhood friend Auggie Raymond bought the old “Ocean Born Mary House,” a firetrap in Henniker that has long stood vacant. The year is 1975, and the first-time homeowners explain they want to exploit the house’s alleged ghost, Mary Wilson Wallace, by offering tours and selling souvenirs to spirit hunters and academics interested in the occult. In 1720, Mary was born on an oceangoing ship off the coast of New England. Centuries later, people say her apparition inhabits the house. The storyline seesaws from 1975 to emerald-eyed Mary’s shipboard birth, her wedding, her death at age 94 in the Henniker house, and her descendants through three centuries. When a green-eyed woman claiming to be the secret illegitimate daughter of one of those descendants visits Bart, he fears his paranormal enterprise may experience a hiccup. Ghostly activity in the house causes nerves to jangle, but it’s the corpse in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor that produces true fear. Newborn Mary’s discovery on the ship by a pirate called Don Pedro, who allowed her and the others onboard to live as he and his men plundered the vessel, and various other past tales add richness to the story. But some historical accounts fall flat; when the elderly Don Pedro introduces himself to Mary when she is 68, there is little payoff. Italicizing is inconsistent—italics are used for internal monologues, emphasis, signage, correspondence, and event summaries. References to TV Detective Joe Friday working a case and the “aw-shucks grin” of actor Gary Cooper seem corny even in a book set in the mid-’70s, and the recap of the first installment of the series is clunky. But ghostly elements add shivers, and the reason for the murder provides a welcome twist. Another positive element: the realistic pains and promise of Martha and Sam’s new relationship.
A winning trifecta for cozy enthusiasts: a ghost story, a murder mystery, and a fresh romance.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61950-312-0
Page Count: 191
Publisher: Gypsy Shadow Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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