An engaging story about a woman and her canine overcoming heartbreak as a pack.
A dog mourns the abrupt split of an engaged couple in this contemporary novel.
Lucy and John are soon to be married. Their small pack is rounded out by their huge half-wolf dog, Skip, who acts as the story’s narrator. Without warning, John tells Lucy he needs time alone and walks out, leaving Skip as her only emotional support. The canine goes through his own grieving process, wondering about “our pack’s future together.” He tries to comfort Lucy; she rescued him from the pound so he vows: “We’ll figure this out together. You saved me once, and now I’ll save you.” But being a single, working dog mom poses logistical challenges so Lucy gets help from her neighbors, even the semi-reclusive Manny on the top floor. The boy downstairs, Thomas, bonds with Skip by reading him a Harry Potter tale while Lucy works. The dog grows very close to the boy: “I don’t have to be strong with Thomas….I just need to listen and let him be my friend.” Now that Skip is cared for, Lucy can focus on her new job as “the head geriatrics nurse and wellness director” at a retirement home. Soon Lucy and Skip both realize they are making new friends, having enjoyable experiences, and missing John less. But when he tries to move back in, they must decide if they want to return to their old pack or let go of their past and move confidently into the future. Although Lucy and John’s love story is the initial plot thread, with his abandonment, the tale smoothly shifts to the uplifting romance between the heroine and Skip. Case’s (Tiger Drive, 2018, etc.) decision to have readers view most of the story through Skip’s perspective deftly reinforces the pair’s emotional connection. But at times, this conceit falters, especially when Skip uses words like “chillaxed” or “carpe diem.” The author also offers some unnecessary subplots, which fail to add much to the narrative and only increase the page count. Those minor faults aside, this novel is a superb choice for fans of contemporary romances or dog-centric tales.
An engaging story about a woman and her canine overcoming heartbreak as a pack.Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9997015-2-2
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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