Points for honesty and grit, though that’s hardly enough to compensate for all the flaws.
A Desert Storm veteran's amateurish and overwritten, if not without a certain rakish appeal, first novel—about African-Americans in the military—pulls few punches in depicting the tribulations of First Lieutenant Sanderella Coffee.
Twenty-nine and just back from a tour of duty in Germany, Sanderella is focused on her illustrious goal—biding her time in Virginia until she’s admitted to Officers’ Candidate School. A single mother of three (by three fathers), Sanderella admits that when matters veer toward love, she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So she swears off men—that is, until she catches sight of Drill Sergeant Romulus Caesar. As the story alternates between the voices of Sandie and Rom (so seamlessly it’s often difficult to tell who’s talking), the two begin a passionate affair, despite Romulus being married, with twin boys at home. He promises Sandie he’ll divorce, and for a certain time their relationship seems promising. The two, neither of them particularly likable, build a supportive relationship, one that helps carry Sandie through hard times: Her older sister has HIV, both of her parents are ill, her superior officer has it in for her, and, to top it off, she discovers she’s pregnant. Unfortunately coinciding with Sandie’s pregnancy is the appearance of Rom’s guilty conscience. He decides to break it off and return to his wife and sons, not wanting to be the kind of absent parent his father was to him. Though overloaded with uplifting convictions as to the potential of the African-American community, a certain raw honesty in the depiction of Sandie and her family redeems the obvious sentiments. Less forgivable is the language, too often ungoverned and unintentionally silly: “ ‘Sandie,’ he said as he reached inside his briefs and carefully extracted his family jewels, ‘this is Mr. Bobo. And he’s all yours.’ ”
Points for honesty and grit, though that’s hardly enough to compensate for all the flaws.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-75777-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2001
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
A treat for fans of The Evil Dead or Zombieland, complete with affordable solutions for better living.
A hardy band of big-box retail employees must dig down for their personal courage when ghosts begin stalking them through home furnishings.
You have to give it up for the wave of paranormal novels that have plagued the last decade in literature; at least they’ve made writers up their games when it comes to finding new settings in which to plot their scary moments. That’s the case with this clever little horror story from longtime pop-culture journalist Hendrix (Satan Loves You, 2012, etc.). Set inside a disturbingly familiar Scandinavian furniture superstore in Cleveland called Orsk, the book starts as a Palahniuk-tinged satire about the things we own—the novel is even wrapped in the form of a retail catalog complete with product illustrations. Our main protagonist is Amy, an aimless 24-year-old retail clerk. She and an elderly co-worker, Ruth Anne, are recruited by their anal-retentive boss, Basil (a closet geek), to investigate a series of strange breakages by walking the showroom floor overnight. They quickly uncover two other co-workers, Matt and Trinity, who have stayed in the store to film a reality show called Ghost Bomb in hopes of catching a spirit on tape. It’s cute and quite funny in a Scooby Doo kind of way until they run across Carl, a homeless squatter who's just trying to catch a break. Following an impromptu séance, Carl is possessed by an evil spirit and cuts his own throat. It turns out the Orsk store was built on the remains of a brutal prison called the Cuyahoga Panopticon, and its former warden, Josiah Worth, has returned from the dead to start up operations again. It sounds like an absurd setting for a haunted-house novel, but Hendrix makes it work to the story’s advantage, turning the psychological manipulations and scripted experiences that are inherent to the retail experience into a sinister fight for survival.
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59474-526-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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