Despite a rather abrupt resolution to the central mystery, Kearsley’s tale is lush with romantic and ghostly threads.
Why is the ghost of a 2nd-century Roman sentinel guarding an archaeological site? And why is he following Verity Grey?
First published in 1997, Kearsley’s book still pleases with its deft blending of romance and the Gothic. Archaeologist Verity Grey has made her professional mark and even landed a secure position at the British Museum. But when her charming ex-boyfriend Adrian calls, Verity is easily lured to Scotland with promises of archaeological adventure. From the moment she boards the train, Verity’s world becomes mysteriously ominous. The Gothic atmosphere begins to swirl with the moors, a dark house lit by a single candle, and shadowy horses thundering through the night, wakening our heroine. Once Verily arrives at Peter Quinnell’s home, she meets the rest of the crew. In his 70s, Quinnell is still handsome and brilliant yet discredited by his fellow archaeologists, who lament his mad search for the 2nd-century marching camp known as Legio IX Hispana. Charismatic as ever, Adrian has his eye on every pretty woman, including Peter’s granddaughter Fabia, the photographer who seems to know very little about archaeology. Verity’s own eye is drawn to the darkly handsome, mysterious David Fortune, an archaeologist from the local university. As the team hunts for the remains of the Roman camp, however, someone seems to be intent upon sabotaging the hunt. Indeed, the dig itself seems haunted by a Roman sentinel who speaks only to a young, possibly psychic boy named Robbie. The tension mounts as Verity and David’s romance intensifies and the sentinel demands more from Robbie, warning against dangers and urging caution. But what is the source of the danger?
Despite a rather abrupt resolution to the central mystery, Kearsley’s tale is lush with romantic and ghostly threads.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4022-5870-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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