An engagingly twisted family saga that begins with a unique premise but later relies on familiar thriller tropes.
Three sisters battle one another for social and economic supremacy in Patrick’s debut novel.
The luxurious hillside city of Prospect Park, Calif., is known for its old money, glamorous parties and esteemed residents. In 1916, however, the eyes of America are on Ermel Sue Railer, a 16-year-old girl from the city’s most impoverished neighborhood, Yucatan Downs, better known as “Yucky D.” When Ermel gives birth to Abigail, Judith and Dorthea—the first identical triplets ever born in the United States—the national media floods into the neighborhood, and the reports catch the eye of Prospect Park’s lauded Duchess of Sarlione. The duchess goes to Yucky D to visit the babies; she becomes so enamored with them that she strikes a deal with Ermel’s husband, Jeb, to purchase the girls for herself. Although Ermel initially resists, she signs away her rights to Abigail and Judith but keeps Dorthea at the last moment, foiling Jeb’s arrangement and forfeiting the money. As the poor Dorthea grows up, the only thing she inherits from Ermel is her contentious nature. Patrick effectively uses his fiery characters to explore class mobility, whether morality and wealth can coexist, and the lengths to which people will go to spite others. “Look around, every minute of the day, every day of the year, and you’ll see the world is full of nothin’ but givers and takers,” Jeb later tells 12-year-old Dorthea. As she stares night after night at the exquisite mansions that top Prospect Park’s hill, she decides that nothing will keep her from attaining the same prestige and power as her sisters. Dorthea’s quest for power begins as petty sibling jealousy but quickly escalates into calculated sabotage, blackmail, manipulation and worse. Most of the characters’ redeeming qualities are so negligible that even when their compassion is meant to be genuine, it often feels contrived. The various mysteries that arise throughout the story are initially intriguing, but readers may find that they lack the desired shocks when finally revealed.
An engagingly twisted family saga that begins with a unique premise but later relies on familiar thriller tropes.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989354400
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Country Scribbler
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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