Another earnest tale in a western setting from the CEO of the PR firm Hill & Knowlton. In this second volume of Eidson's American frontier trilogy (St. Agnes' Stand, p. 160), Christianity and Indian magic are pitted against each other in the rescue of a girl who has been kidnapped by a band of Apaches. When old warrior Samuel Jones appears at the Baldwin ranch, Brake Baldwin's wife, Maggie, is immediately hostile toward him. Although she initially refuses to acknowledge any relationship to Jones, she eventually admits that he is her father, who left her and her mother for an Indian woman when Maggie was still a child. Jones has come to reconcile with his daughter before his death, which looks to be imminent. When Maggie's elder daughter, Lily, is abducted, Jones goes after her with Maggie's younger daughter, Dot, tagging along. After trying to get her daughter to return home, Maggie eventually joins with Dot and Jones in their pursuit of Lily's captors. Although Maggie despises Indians and is devoutly Christian, Jones teaches Dot Indian magic, and together they discover Lily's whereabouts. They follow her trail to the Mexican border, but the lame Indian who is holding her is a pesh-childin, a witch, whose magic is very strong. The only way they can save themselves is with the even stronger magic of true Christian faith. While Christianity is the final victor, Maggie's distrust of Indians and Indian magic is challenged and eventually proven wrong. Eidson presents a system in which all beliefs are valid, if not equally so, and innocence is valued wherever it's found. Because the novel is merely a vehicle for this lesson, the characters are unnuanced puppets, and the plot is solid but uninspired. Eidson also stretches credibility on occasion, as when Maggie's hair shines in the sun after dusty days on the trail or in the seemingly endless depths of Jones's saddlebags. Larry McMurtry lite with a moral twist.
Pub Date: March 22, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14057-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
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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