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DIVINE TOYS

Name: DIVINE TOYS
Author: Thistle Brown
ISBN: 978-1477537879

BOOK ONE

by Thistle Brown ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 24, 2013

A protagonist too good to be true lessens the appeal of this historical novel.

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In this first installment of a planned multivolume family saga, Brown (A Taste for Truth, 2012) begins the life story of Harriet Clark, a talented young musician who escapes her hardscrabble Arkansas upbringing for the opportunities and temptations of 1920s Chicago.

At 4 years old, Harriet lives with her abusive stepfather and submissive mother. Her prospects are bleak until, in a rare moment of assertiveness, her mother insists she begin piano lessons. The little girl shows unusual talent, so much that her first teacher wheedles the town’s Episcopal minister, Jed Thorne—once on track to become a concert violinist until he suffered a crippling hand injury—to take her on as a pupil. Jed and his family—his widowed mother and uncle—stimulate Harriet’s musical talent and her intellectual appetites. As she matures and Jed realizes that he too must step aside for a more experienced teacher, he finds her employment with wealthy friends Fred and Lavinia Norwood in Evanston, Ill. Harriet quickly becomes a favorite with the family’s daughters, Ethel and Florence, but her own musical studies are put on hold until funding is provided by other influential Chicagoans, one of whom discovers Harriet’s singing talent is even greater than her skill at the keyboard. But an ill-advised love affair thwarts Harriet’s path to opera stardom. And it’s this affair that finally derails the promise of the novel. The writing isn’t bad: The sentences are varied and assured and the vocabulary extensive, although sometimes a penchant for historical research leads to tedious lists of furniture, descriptions of outfits and minilectures on architecture. The biggest flaw, however, is Harriet herself. She’s simply good at nearly everything: the best piano player, the greatest singer, the most amazing, engaging teacher. She’s even fantastic in bed, despite showing little sign of sexual curiosity until she’s suddenly sleeping with a married man twice her age. It makes the reader realize in retrospect that most of the other characters primarily gush about Harriet’s excellence.

A protagonist too good to be true lessens the appeal of this historical novel.

Pub Date: June 24, 2013

ISBN: 978-1477537879

Page Count: 378

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.