A romance novel that is genuinely romantic as well as psychologically sophisticated.
A British officer returns from war to the temptations of a new love in Shaw’s historical romantic drama.
In 1795, Captain Edward Trewin of the British Royal Navy returns from war with France as a widely celebrated “hero for the nation” likely to become wealthy from the spoils of victory. Nonetheless, his mood is black, as he left Cornwall on acrimonious terms with his wife Julia, who resented being abandoned to care for their two daughters alone. Embittered, she answered none of Edward’s letters over the course of the year he was abroad. Reluctant to return home, he accepts an invitation to lodge with his old friend Admiral Augustus Heywood in Portsmouth, and he is immediately taken with Augustus’ daughter Caroline, who has never married—though she expects an offer soon from George Winslow. Winslow jilts her, though, for a wealthier prospect, and Caroline is left free to enjoy the company of Edward, who savors her attention. The romantic electricity between them crackles—the author deftly captures their mutual longing—and their flirtations finally crescendo into a full indiscretion, the first of many. In this intelligently rendered story, Edward is caught between the love he has for Caroline and his marriage “in shreds,” a union that only further deteriorates when Julia finally unleashes upon Edward “unvarnished declarations of her deep unhappiness”; there seems to be no way out for him. (“What am I to do? I love my wife, but she will not have me. It seems that Caroline will have me, but she is not my wife.”)
Shaw offers more than a simplistic tale that pits honor against love—Edward loves both Julia and Caroline, a predicament that becomes even more challenging when Julia begins to express more welcoming signs of forgiveness. The issue here is the fathomless complexity and expansiveness of romantic love, which can present itself as an intractable problem. There are elements of the story that inspire incredulity—Caroline’s father is remarkably magnanimous when he learns of the affair, especially when one considers the precepts of martial virtue by which his life is governed. Occasionally, the author’s writing can veer into anodyne earnestness, the familiar stamp of a lesser romance novel; here, Caroline anxiously considers her plight: “I want to make him happy. Could we not make each other happy? Would that be so wrong?” However, such insipidity is rare. In fact, while Shaw’s prose style can be a touch genteel, the plot is well executed and briskly paced, and the erotic tension between Edward and Caroline is impressively palpable (“When the dance ended, he bowed to her deeply, resisting a sudden and wholly inappropriate impulse to press her hand to his lips”). Also, Edward is a delicately drawn protagonist—a sailor naturally constituted for war, he is also surprisingly nuanced and sensitive, and these contradictory inclinations are made entirely plausible by the author. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read—deeply thoughtful and dramatically immersive.
A romance novel that is genuinely romantic as well as psychologically sophisticated.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781681311005
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Meryton Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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