For any other writer this would be a fine novel, but de Rosnay’s fans will expect more than the central character’s aimless...
The story of an emotionally distant family as it struggles to come to grips with changing dynamics and the mysterious death of a young mother many years ago.
Like de Rosnay’s bestselling Sarah’s Key (2007), this novel is set in Paris, but while her earlier novel explored a national tragedy, this one tackles a personal one. Antoine Rey, son of the famous attorney, and his sister, Mélanie, are returning from a visit to the family’s old summer vacation stomping grounds when Mélanie tells her brother she has remembered something important about their mother’s death. She promptly steers the car into a wreck, putting herself in the hospital, unable to remember the important detail she once recalled. Antoine sits vigil by his sister’s side, trying to figure out what has gone wrong with his life: His wife has left him for another man, of his three children only one seems to like him anymore, and he is tired of dating vacuous young women. His father, who comes from a well-known Parisian family, is old, paunchy and distant—a complete shadow of the man who was married to the gorgeous Clarisse. Clarisse, Antoine and Mélanie’s mother, died when they were small children, supposedly succumbing to an aneurism in their apartment, but when Antoine starts questioning the version of her death they have always accepted as the truth, he stumbles upon some disturbing possibilities. In the meantime, he becomes involved in a relationship with a woman his own age who impresses him with her independence and sexuality, squares off against his eldest son and helps his daughter through a tough loss of her own. De Rosnay’s writing is eloquent and beautiful, and her characterizations are both honest and dead-on—anyone with a teenager will recognize the parental angst Antoine experiences as genuine. But the plot meanders to a conclusion that seems anticlimactic at best, a letdown at worst—the secret is hardly worth the trouble it causes.
For any other writer this would be a fine novel, but de Rosnay’s fans will expect more than the central character’s aimless journey.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-59331-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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