by Ursula Hegi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2007
Extremely readable, but thoroughly unpleasant.
Grim, gripping fiction from Hegi (Sacred Time, 2003, etc.) about childhood friends whose triangular relationship goes horribly wrong.
Annie drives around eastern Long Island at night, listening to psychologists’ call-in programs to distract herself from the horror of her husband Mason’s recent suicide. He hung himself in Annie’s studio, among her collages so she’d never be able to work there again, making sure that she would be the one to find him. And he did it after he’d goaded her and their best friend Jake into an act (unspecified at first, but it’s clear what happened) that prompted Annie to tell Mason their marriage was over. We quickly learn that Mason has threatened suicide before when he didn’t get his own way and that he’s pathologically jealous. The narrative intermingles past and present—including a pre-suicide monologue by Mason—to show the three children growing up in adjacent houses; the tensions that arose from Jake’s mother providing paid day care for Annie and Mason; fraught teenage years of shifting sexual alliances; the death of Annie’s parents in a car accident on her wedding day, leaving 19-year-old Annie and Mason to raise her newborn sister Opal as their daughter; Annie’s struggle to deal with Mason’s suicide, her guilt and Opal’s furious bereavement. Every development demonstrates that Mason was, from childhood, a sociopath: greedy, selfish, a liar and a manipulator. The problem—and it’s a big one—is that we never see the charm that must have accompanied his pathology, so it’s very hard to understand why the other two didn’t dump him years ago. Despite this major plausibility issue, the story compels by virtue of its sheer velocity and a host of well-drawn subsidiary characters. But a heavily foreshadowed final revelation isn’t the epiphany Hegi seems to intend, and any hope suggested by Annie and Jake’s reconciliation is decidedly dampened by the chilling portrait of Opal, who appears to have acquired by example Mason’s tendency to threaten and punish.
Extremely readable, but thoroughly unpleasant.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4375-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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