by P.G. Nagle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2002
Nagle fictionalizes some naval encounters but keeps a gripping pace without striving for the grand and glorious.
Third historical in Nagle’s ongoing saga of Confederates in the Southwest, following Glorietta Pass (1998) and The Guns of Valverde (2000). In Glorietta, Jamie Russell leaves the family farm outside Galveston, joins the Confederate cause and participates in the battle of Glorietta Pass, sometimes called the Gettysburg of the West. Following the Confederate collapse at Valverde, the troops withdraw back into Texas, Jamie bringing with him a captured Union battery of six cannons. Now the cannons and Jamie return to Galveston Island, where he visits his family farm. His two brothers are gone but Momma and Poppa remain, caring for daughter Emma, a lean, hard-edged girl in men’s workclothes who does heavy labor. Jamie has with him Emma’s letters to her beloved Captain Stephen Martin, and Martin’s watchfob portrait of her and the last letter to her before his death. The story turns doubly on Emma being sent to visit Aunt May in Galveston, where she is to be taught ladylike manners, and on Jamie’s attempt to save Galveston from being taken over by the Federal Navy, which has blockaded the harbor. The Battle of Galveston restores the island and its harbor to Confederate control. But can Emma’s hollow-eyed sadness lift under the stress of Aunt May’s wasting fevers and the war privations in Galveston? And what will happen between Jamie and the sexy Mrs. Hawkland?
Nagle fictionalizes some naval encounters but keeps a gripping pace without striving for the grand and glorious.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-87614-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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