by Teri Ames ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 20, 2016
A well-paced, compelling story of minor events and ordinary lives spiraling out of control.
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In her debut novel, Ames presents an account of the ordeal faced by a mother accused of assault and child endangerment.
Sarah Bennett has a hectic middle-class life with her husband, James; three children ages 12, 8, and 6; and a stressful job as director of a homeless shelter. She and her husband struggle to argue less with each other and with their children. Soon after an unpleasant run-in with two local police officers, during which she refuses them entry to search for evidence of criminal activity by a shelter resident, she stands accused of several crimes related to a minor driving incident involving her 8-year-old daughter. Meredith refuses to go into ballet class, and, frustrated by her daughter’s obstinacy, Sarah leaves Meredith in front of the school, locks the car doors, and slowly drives away. Meredith hangs onto the slider door handle of the van, running along behind for a few seconds, unhurt but upset. Sarah sends her husband back to check on Meredith but an observer has already reported his version of the incident to the police. This report, combined with the unreliable testimony of a terrified 8-year-old, a police force already antagonistic to Sarah, and a legal structure skewed in favor of the prosecutors, sends the Bennett family into a maelstrom. The story is told from several points of view: Sarah, James, 12-year-old Nick, a police officer, and the state’s attorney. The most enthralling chapters are those of Sarah and her son. The judge’s “no contact” order forces Sarah to move out of the family home and not see or speak to Meredith. This becomes agonizing for her and the other children. The author conveys the son’s distress in small but effective examples. During the first Christmas without his mother, Nick notices the “mistakes”: “First, the Santa presents are wrapped in the same wrapping paper the family presents are wrapped in. Second, there are price tags on some of the stuff in the stockings.” Less convincing are the other narrators, who are much less vivid. In an author’s note, Ames discloses that the story is largely autobiographical. The book’s title belies its powerful impact.
A well-paced, compelling story of minor events and ordinary lives spiraling out of control.Pub Date: May 20, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Catamount Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Teri Ames
by Robinne Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2017
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.
When Solène Marchand takes her 12-year-old daughter to a concert by the hottest boy band on the planet, she doesn't expect to fall in love with one of the singers.
Middle-aged art gallery owner Solène hasn’t dated since her divorce, but when her ex-husband buys their daughter and a group of her friends tickets to Vegas and a backstage concert experience, then backs out at the last minute, she steps in as escort. The five guys in the wildly popular English boy band August Moon appeal to women of all ages, but Hayes, the brains behind the group’s success, flirts with Solène at the concert meet and greet, invites them to a party after the show, then pursues her once she gets back to Los Angeles. He’s only 20 and he’s incredibly famous; his attention is flattering and heady. The two fall into an affair that’s supposed to be light and easy, but before long they can’t ignore their intense emotional attachment. Solène is hesitant to tell her daughter, but when she procrastinates, Isabelle learns about it through an online tabloid, which damages their relationship and leaves Solène open to censure from her ex. Then, once the affair goes viral, she experiences the darker side of Hayes’ fan base. What started out as a jaunty adventure turns into an emotionally fraught journey, and Solène must decide what she’s willing to risk for her happiness and what she won’t risk for her daughter’s. Actress Lee, who appeared in Fifty Shades Darker, debuts with a beautifully written novel that explores sex, love, romance, and fantasy in moving, insightful ways while also examining a woman’s struggle with aging and sexism, with a nod at the tension between celebrity and privacy.
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-12590-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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by Kathy Reichs
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by Kathy Reichs
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by Kathy Reichs
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