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BUFFALO SOLDIERS

Name: BUFFALO SOLDIERS
Author: Tom Willard
ISBN: 0-312-86041-2

VOL. I OF THE BLACK SABRE CHRONICLES

by Tom Willard ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 1996

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A veteran paperback author debuts in hardcover with this more- than-promising first in a series on the African-American experience in the US military. Here, Willard tracks the long and eventful life of Augustus Sharps, who rose through the ranks of the Tenth Cavalry during the later half of the 19th century. Saved by black troopers from death in a Great Plains stampede and indentured servitude at the hands of a white hunter who had bought him from his erstwhile captors, the Kiowa, Augustus signs on with the Army as a teenager in 1869. He and his fellow buffalo soldiers (so called by the Cheyenne for their wiry hair) played an important role in America's drive to fulfill its ``manifest destiny.'' Assigned to remote hardship posts on the westering frontier, they protected settlers against marauding whites (known as comancheros) and Indians vainly attempting to defend themselves and their way of life from extinction. Along his upwardly mobile way, Augustus (a crack shot with the long rifle from which he took his surname) survives frequent clashes with red men on battlefields from Kansas to New Mexico, earns a sergeant major's stripes, endures the opprobrium of homesteaders not overly fond of black troops, and marries a good woman who was scalped by renegade Texas Rangers. Augustus also meets the legendary likes of Wild Bill Hickok and George Armstrong Custer. Toward the close of his career, Augustus is in the vanguard of Teddy Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill; then, after retirement, he tours with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. On the eve of the US entry into WW I, the old soldier sees one of his two sons off to OCS in possession of the battered sword with which he campaigned so honorably for nearly four decades. An ever involving, painstakingly researched narrative that, among other great themes, documents the force-of-arms efforts of one oppressed race to subjugate another.

Pub Date: June 6, 1996

ISBN: 0-312-86041-2

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Forge

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
WINGS OF HONOR
by Tom Willard

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SABLE DOUGHBOYS
by Tom Willard

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.