A sweet, moving family tale.
A man who recently lost his wife spends two weeks with his grandson in an idyllic Michigan lakeside setting in this novel.
O’Leary (Irish Crossings: Danny’s Story, 2018, etc.) introduces readers to Emmet Hyland just before the most heartbreaking moment of his life, as cancer takes his love of 50 years, Mia. The couple’s only child, Jackie, shows up with her 13-year-old son, Colin, and Emmet barely has time to grieve when he is put in charge of the teen. Jackie and her new boyfriend are taking a vacation, and although Emmet doesn’t know his grandson very well, he feels obligated to take care of him. It’s awkward at first, as Colin keeps his head in his iPad and Emmet tries to figure out how to feed and entertain the kid. As it turns out, a little time hiking and learning to kayak on the lake is just what Colin needs to help him get over the hurt of his father leaving. And teaching Colin these things is just what Emmet requires to come to terms with Mia’s death and learn how to keep living. O’Leary’s tale is unabashedly sentimental, and it has no guile. Everything is played close to the surface, as in the scene where Emmet visits the box containing Mia’s ashes he carefully placed at the bottom of the lake: “I found my Mia nestled among the seaweed. The package was ragged. I don’t know if it was natural deterioration or if the fish were pecking away. I knew it didn’t matter to Mia. She was where she longed to be.” The metaphors are plain—Mia’s box dissolves as Emmet gains his footing and feels useful again helping Colin. The way Colin finds his confidence is fairly predictable. But in the author’s hands, these things are more comforting than cloying, and the story doesn’t overstay its welcome. This novel could have been a syrupy mess, but instead it is an affecting read.
A sweet, moving family tale.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73353-410-9
Page Count: 241
Publisher: Swan Creek Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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