A quick, pleasant read.
In Karsten’s (Snags and Sawyers: 2000 Miles Down the Arkansas River, 2012, etc.) historical romance, a case of mistaken identity strands a Scottish lass in Colonial Philadelphia.
Impetuous Caroline “Callie” Beaton flees her grandfather’s house in a huff one night, tired of the dull suitors he parades before her. Wandering the docks of Leith, she’s shocked to be bundled into the hold of a ship, mistaken for a young woman who signed a contract of indentured servitude to gain passage to America. Before she knows it, she’s at sea, stranded without anything to prove her true identity; she has no choice but to bide her time until they reach the Colonies, where she can hopefully find a way to contact her family across the Atlantic. Aboard the ship, she befriends other indentured women: blithe, gossipy Peg, and Mary Rawles, whose husband dies during the voyage, leaving her with two small children and a debt to work off. Callie is also drawn to another passenger, handsome Davy McRae, a self-described businessman whose trade remains mysterious. But while she’s attracted to him, getting back home is far more important, and, once in Philadelphia, Callie suffers through her indenture being sold to the Ashers, a wealthy family with a tangled history. The eldest son, Ethan, seems a trustworthy gentleman, and Callie’s overjoyed when he sneaks her paper and ink to write a letter home. Though Ethan promises to send it, there’s no quick reply, and gently bred Callie finds herself working from dawn till dusk, with no thanks from her masters. When the patriarch of the family is murdered, however, she’s the prime suspect and must flee suspicion with none other than Davy McRae. Is their burgeoning romance a distraction from Callie’s homeward mission? Who can she trust in this foreign land? Karsten ably handles the setting, conjuring the sights and sounds of 1754 Philadelphia and the never-ending chores. Callie is likable, if rather too trusting of men, while love interest Davy has a complicated history of his own. Karsten doesn’t break new ground here, but she’s penned an engaging story with some clever plot twists.
A quick, pleasant read.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1458218278
Page Count: 276
Publisher: AbbottPress
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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