A cumbersome hybrid of golden-years love story and gun-toting adventure.
Two extremely active seniors fall in love while battling terrorists in this creaky thriller–romance.
Tom Rowter, a retired aviation executive, has a secret past with the CIA and a heart still recovering from his wife’s death. Sunny Shinne is a three-quarters Apache grandma who’s also heiress to a cattle and oil empire. Their meet-cute happens when Tom chivalrously guns down two thugs attempting to kidnap Sunny on a Texas highway, his bullets beating Sunny’s own fusillade by a split second. Unruffled by the carnage, Sunny whisks Tom off to the ranch where her crusty but lovable plutocrat dad presides over a ranch-cum-city-state, complete with its own general store, retro diner, hangar full of aircraft, fortified armory and nuclear power plant. Tom ogles Sunny’s petite, raven-haired figure; she appreciates the cut of his jib. They bond over their mutual love of flying and shooting; said bond is greatly strengthened when further run-ins with bad guys require the couple to strip down and make out as a ruse. This first installment of the author’s Reluctant White Knight series strikes an awkward balance between saccharine romance and hard-bitten action. A lot of ardent gazing and flirty banter passes between Tom and Sunny, but these cloying passages clash tonally with the flyboy lingo, elaborate security protocols and countless “briefings” that encrust the manlier scenes. Firearms, including a “fully automatic AR-15 assault rifle with noise suppressor and folding support…effortless to use and yet so destructive,” are a central theme, and the novel is fairly obsessed with their availability, concealment and proper handling. But for all the paramilitary flourishes, Anderson’s action set pieces feel perfunctory and one-sided. There are always hordes of well-armed retainers and Feds around to rescue Tom and Sunny from their outgunned, overmatched adversaries; one showdown pits a phalanx of rifle-toting Secret Servicemen against a lone mountain lion. The book often feels like a fantasia about the luxuriously overstaffed lives of the rich and powerful: Tom and Sunny spend their time basking at the hacienda or on her enormous yacht, swarmed by cooks, valets, footmen and other solicitous hirelings; Sunny even has a U.S. senator at her beck and call to help cut bureaucratic red tape. Indulging in all that Texas-sized privilege tends to slow the storytelling to a crawl.
A cumbersome hybrid of golden-years love story and gun-toting adventure.Pub Date: Dec. 23, 2008
ISBN: 978-1468078756
Page Count: 192
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.
A fifth-grade New Orleans girl discovers a mysterious chrysalis containing an unexpected creature in this middle-grade novel.
Jacquelyn Marie Johnson, called Jackie, is a 10-year-old African-American girl, the second oldest and the only girl of six siblings. She’s responsible, smart, and enjoys being in charge; she likes “paper dolls and long division and imagining things she had never seen.” Normally, Jackie has no trouble obeying her strict but loving parents. But when her potted snapdragon acquires a peculiar egg or maybe a chrysalis (she dubs it a chrysalegg), Jackie’s strong desire to protect it runs up against her mother’s rule against plants in the house. Jackie doesn’t exactly mean to lie, but she tells her mother she needs to keep the snapdragon in her room for a science project and gets permission. Jackie draws the chrysalegg daily, waiting for something to happen as it gets larger. When the amazing creature inside breaks free, Jackie is more determined than ever to protect it, but this leads her further into secrets and lies. The results when her parents find out are painful, and resolving the problem will take courage, honesty, and trust. Dumas (Jaden Toussaint, the Greatest: Episode 5, 2017, etc.) presents a very likable character in Jackie. At 10, she’s young enough to enjoy playing with paper dolls but has a maturity that even older kids can lack. She’s resourceful, as when she wants to measure a red spot on the chrysalegg; lacking calipers, she fashions one from her hairpin. Jackie’s inward struggle about what to obey—her dearest wishes or the parents she loves—is one many readers will understand. The book complicates this question by making Jackie’s parents, especially her mother, strict (as one might expect to keep order in a large family) but undeniably loving and protective as well—it’s not just a question of outwitting clueless adults. Jackie’s feelings about the creature (tender and responsible but also more than a little obsessive) are similarly shaded rather than black-and-white. The ending suggests that an intriguing sequel is to come.
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943169-32-0
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Plum Street Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.
In the ninth book in the Bluford young-adult series, a young Latino man walks away from violence—but at great personal cost.
In a large Southern California city, 16-year-old Martin Luna hangs out on the fringes of gang life. He’s disaffected, fatherless and increasingly drawn into the orbit of the older, rougher Frankie. When a stray bullet kills Martin’s adored 8-year-old brother, Huero, Martin seems to be heading into a life of crime. But Martin’s mother, determined not to lose another son, moves him to another neighborhood—the fictional town of Bluford, where he attends the racially diverse Bluford High. At his new school, the still-grieving Martin quickly makes enemies and gets into trouble. But he also makes friends with a kind English teacher and catches the eye of Vicky, a smart, pretty and outgoing Bluford student. Martin’s first-person narration supplies much of the book’s power. His dialogue is plain, but realistic and believable, and the authors wisely avoid the temptation to lard his speech with dated and potentially embarrassing slang. The author draws a vivid and affecting picture of Martin’s pain and confusion, bringing a tight-lipped teenager to life. In fact, Martin’s character is so well drawn that when he realizes the truth about his friend Frankie, readers won’t feel as if they are watching an after-school special, but as though they are observing the natural progression of Martin’s personal growth. This short novel appears to be aimed at urban teens who don’t often see their neighborhoods portrayed in young-adult fiction, but its sophisticated characters and affecting story will likely have much wider appeal.
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 978-1591940173
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Townsend Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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