A slow-moving but engaging tale about thorny family ties.
In this novel, a snowmobile accident leaves a woman and her young daughter fighting for their lives as her husband seemingly abandons them.
Long Islander Francesca Bellini is in her first year as a music teacher when she meets Ben Bodin. This “dignified” young architect catches her attention immediately. It isn’t long before the two get married and start a new life in Vermont. Though Francesca is reluctant to move away from her parents, the couple’s newly built home in the forest sits next to a beautiful meadow that Mother Nature herself made. Francesca loves her husband, but after she has a baby, she grows especially close to their daughter, Addie. She is miserable when she and her child are apart. One December evening, when Addie is 4 years old, Ben takes the family on a snowmobile trip across the wintry landscape. Although he’s a skilled rider, he can’t avoid an accident that throws all three into an icy lake. Francesca sinks into the blistering cold water, struggling to stay on the surface. As she screams for Addie, whom she can’t see, she’s astounded when she sees Ben find his way to solid ground only to run away and leave his family behind. In the dreamlike sequence that follows, Francesca somehow makes it to the nearby woods. She stumbles on an enigmatic individual called the White Widow, joined by her “sisters in spirit.” These women have all been betrayed—sometimes killed—by their husbands. As they all crave vengeance, Francesca may have to deliver their lethal brand of retribution against Ben.
Speranza meticulously develops the relationship between Francesca and Ben. She doesn’t skimp on scenes like the construction of the couple’s home; their adoption of a beloved golden retriever, Cruz; and Francesca’s road to motherhood. Softhearted Francesca, who’s an accomplished flutist, will easily win readers’ admiration; she’s the patient and firm one in arguments. But the narrative perspective shifts to Ben as well and largely centers on his dead twin sister, Lucy. He’s not quite as sympathetic as his wife, but the story does shine a light on the tragedy of teenage Lucy’s death, a topic Ben routinely dodges. Despite a potent connection between mother and child, the novel’s strongest bond involves Cruz and Addie. The dog, for example, “nudges” Addie when she’s trying to crawl and stays at her side as she learns to swim. The author’s tendency to describe things in painstaking detail makes for an unhurried narrative. Certain passages nevertheless read like poetry. There’s lyricism even in infant Addie’s wails: “Slowly, her mouth widens as she bellows her anguish, and moves her whole body in tandem with the sounds she emits, arms thrashing like a crazed conductor leading a rebellious orchestra, legs in synchrony, kicking the air above her.” Speranza wisely shrouds the relatively short White Widow sequence in ambiguity; readers may question if the meeting is genuinely happening or something else entirely is going on. The ending deftly focuses on redemption and forgiveness. Even if Ben doesn’t have a shot at redeeming himself, Francesca may choose to offer absolution rather than seek retaliation.
A slow-moving but engaging tale about thorny family ties.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64742-324-7
Page Count: 231
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
