A delightful fictional blend of history, suspense, and a love of wine.
A tale of murder and organized crime revolves around the blooming of the Armenian wine industry following the nation’s independence from Soviet rule.
Armenia boasts a rich tradition of winemaking that stretches back 6,000 years, but it was ingloriously interrupted by the depredations of Soviet despotism. In this novel, two close friends and wine aficionados—Haig Koleyan and Van Dorian—are committed to reviving the long dormant industry, a devotion expressed with defiant enthusiasm by Haig: “The Soviets turned everyone’s life upside down, but they couldn’t change geography. Neither Marx nor Lenin nor Stalin could take away our terroir!” Haig leaves Italy, where he made his mark as a winemaker, for Yerevan. He starts his own business, Vinoma Consulting, and becomes a prestigious producer of well-regarded wines. Dorian opens The Realm, the “most popular wine bar in the city,” a place where “he could develop his theories about wine and human emotions.” After being rudely visited by a Russian—a “nasty character” who demands inordinately large orders for a mysterious client—Haig suspects a conspiracy on the part of the Russian mob to fraudulently dilute and resell his finest wine. Zanoyan conjures an enchanting combination of the transcendently beautiful and barbarous. After Sergei Petyan, the associate of a successful but morally dubious Russian wine merchant, is murdered, and Isabelle Karayan, a former employee of Haig, is brutally beaten up, wine entrepreneur Aram Almayan, uses his police connections to investigate. The author’s ardor for wine is unmistakable and his knowledge impressively prodigious. In addition, he weaves discussions of wine into every crevice of human affairs—at one point, Dorian wonders what kind of wine would pair well with one’s “disillusionment with justice.” Further, Zanoyan paints a vivid tableau of Armenia in the wake of Soviet oppression, both the humiliation suffered under it and the exhilarating hope after. The novel will intoxicate readers with its rare mix of historical astuteness, literary skill, and well-crafted drama.
A delightful fictional blend of history, suspense, and a love of wine.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9983924-1-7
Page Count: 299
Publisher: Bowker Identifier Services
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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