A real page-turner that will make you glad of your own duller life.
Happy families don't stay happy for long in British author Lewis' world: here, the idyll of their charmed life is destroyed by an adulterous husband and a bullied teenage daughter.
Though their move to the Welsh coast seemed an impetuous plan of Jack's after he was laid off, Jenna has to admit she loves their beautiful new home, the quaint town, the closeness to the sea, and the help of her mother, Kay, who lives nearby. Jack and Jenna's new online publishing venture, which they're starting with the help of business consultant Martha Gwynne, will soon be up and running, so Jenna will be able to concentrate on her third novel, though that will never be easy with 5-year-old twins, rambunctious 8-year-old Josh, and 15-year-old Paige at home. Paige, popular and outgoing, has thrived at her new school until recently, when someone hacked her Facebook account and began posting vile remarks in her name. Now she's nearly shunned at school, and the bullying begins to escalate. Paige keeps quiet at home, not wanting to add to the domestic misery. Though Jenna has suspected it for a few weeks, Jack finally admits he's having an affair with Martha, and he's moving out. To her credit, Lewis does what novelists seldom do, filling Jenna and Jack's dialogue with just the kind of lusty anger and backbiting one would expect under the circumstance. Things get worse: Jack has embezzled tens of thousands of pounds from their clients, and Paige has been visiting suicide websites. The layers of abuse both Jenna and Paige endure can be overwhelming reading, but Lewis knows her audience—the wrongdoers get their comeuppance while our heroines somehow make out better than before.
A real page-turner that will make you glad of your own duller life.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-54953-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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