A 19th-century family epic filled with strong writing and an engrossing narrative.
In her debut historical novel, Chappell tells the story of a resolute heroine and an entire community during a time when survival depended on intense physical labor and the kindness and camaraderie of the village.
Mattie’s tale begins in 1879 in St. Louis, Missouri, when she and her brother, Thomas, are attacked by a thief while out for a ride on their horse. Thomas dies at the scene while 12-year-old Mattie suffers a debilitating hip injury. The incident and Mattie’s subsequent recovery put immense strain on the girl, her parents, and two older sisters. But Mattie, with the encouragement of Thomas’ ghost, is determined to walk again, despite the doctor’s prognosis. Her father, with some help from the boys at the mill where he works, constructs an entire second wing for their house and rehabilitation gadgetry to help her heal. During this arduous process, Jesse, the young mill foreman, befriends Mattie and becomes a welcome and beloved fixture in the family. When tragedy strikes again, and this time even more harshly, Mattie and Jesse are left to build a new life together. But they are not alone. The two, despite their constant bickering and headstrong personalities, throw themselves into work and grow together into moral, industrious, accomplished adults. A fraught romance develops between them, replete with miscommunications and unfulfilled desires. As these two hotheads stumble through a yearslong courtship in which shared finances and children come long before marriage and sex, they start creating a loving family unit of orphans and outcasts in which perseverance and tenderness are equally valued. Here is a portrait of an unconventional family—a chosen family—before it was commonplace. Likewise, Mattie’s role not only as head of the household with regard to domestic decisions, but business ventures as well, shows that anyone, even a petite, orphaned, single, disabled woman, can be the master of his or her own destiny. The plot here is absorbing. While this book insists that love, affection, loyalty, and hard work are the cornerstones of family, the prose never becomes preachy or sentimental. Though an abrupt and deeply discordant ending may leave some readers confused, this story overflows with pure heart.
A 19th-century family epic filled with strong writing and an engrossing narrative.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4990-6950-1
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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