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WINDFLOWERS

Narrative sweep and an evocative sense of place keep this from sinking under the weight of its contrivances. The...

Stouthearted men and plucky young women take on the Australian outback.

Ellie, at 14, is on the road with her jobless father during the 1930s when a killer dust storm overtakes them, suffocating him. Crying bitterly, Ellie buries him in the baked earth and trudges on alone until rescued by two young men on horseback, shy Joe and his hell-raising brother Charlie. They take her for the boy she claims to be and bring her to Warratah, her aunt Aurelia’s cattle station in Queensland. Aurelia, a formidable but kindly woman who smokes a pipe, is happy to see her niece, though her mother Alicia isn’t. Aurelia loves Australia and has never returned to her native England and wealthy parents, but her sister Alicia, a haughty gold-digger, wants nothing more than to swan it in London again and pick up another rich husband. So Ellie is raised by Aurelia and tags around after Joe and Charlie. When WWII breaks out, Joe enlists, along with most of the men in Australia, while, bereft, the women of Warratah soldier on through a terrible drought. War’s end brings changes, good and bad: Joe is presumed dead in action, and so Ellie develops a crush on Charlie, whose war wound (in his skull) makes him behave strangely. He rapes her during a drunken interlude, and Ellie later realizes to her horror that she’s pregnant. Joe’s unexpected return precipitates a crisis with far-reaching consequences. Charlie dies before he can marry her, but Joe steps up to do the right thing. As the years go by, a complex inheritance arrangement fosters rancorous conflict between Ellie’s daughter by Charlie (Claire) and her daughter by Joe (Leanna). By the close, though, the firm guidance of Aunt Aurelia leads all to reconciliation.

Narrative sweep and an evocative sense of place keep this from sinking under the weight of its contrivances. The Australian-born McKinley (Matilda’s Last Waltz, not reviewed) is no Colleen McCullough, but this is fine even so.

Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2002

ISBN: 0-312-30750-0

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002

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MAGIC HOUR

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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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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