TRUE FIRES

Name: TRUE FIRES
Author: Susan Carol McCarthy
ISBN: 0-553-80170-8

by Susan Carol McCarthy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 30, 2003

Tangled in one too many subplots, McCarthy’s second still offers a vivid portrait of mid-century corruption, and of some...

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Returning to 1950s Florida (Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands, 2002), her debut territory, McCarthy explores racial tension and redemption in Klan country.

Small-town Lake Esther used to be in Judge Hightower’s pocket, but now that he’s dead, control is up for grabs among powerful citrus growers, corrupt Sheriff DeLuth, and the town’s law-abiding citizens. Needing a reelection issue, DeLuth takes the two new kids out of school—fifth-grader Daniel, whose hair has a kink to it, and Becca, his younger sister, whose nose is wide: the kids must be part Negro. Florida law states that children with an eighth African ancestry or more are to be barred from white schools. Franklin Dare, the children’s father, explains that their great-grandfather was Croatan Indian, but DeLuth is unmovable. Enter Lila Hightower, the Judge’s daughter, home from a successful military career in DC to settle her father’s estate. When she discovers that DeLuth—whom she’s known since childhood and blames for her brother Louis’s death—is behind the children’s expulsion, she makes it her business to get them back in school. She starts by involving Ruth Barrows, the chain-smoking, owl-eyed northerner who runs the town paper. Ruth exposes DeLuth’s associate, the charlatan Billy Hathaway, who operates the local All White Is All Right organization, then writes sympathetic pieces about the Dare children. Lila, for her part, pulls all the political strings she can for the support of Fred Sykes, who’s running against DeLuth for sheriff. Meanwhile, young Daniel is building a sweet relationship with an old Seminole beekeeper.

Tangled in one too many subplots, McCarthy’s second still offers a vivid portrait of mid-century corruption, and of some brave enough to risk everything for justice.

Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2003

ISBN: 0-553-80170-8

Page Count: 302

Publisher: Bantam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A PLACE WE KNEW WELL
by Susan Carol McCarthy

- BOOK REVIEW
LAY THAT TRUMPET IN OUR HANDS
by Susan Carol McCarthy

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.