A third entry in Anand's chronicles of conflicts in high and low places in English history (Crown of Roses, 1989; The Proud Villeins, 1992). Here, two women—two generations apart—are battered by great events as England enters the era of the Tudors. ``When times are dangerous, love can be dangerous too''—thus speaks the dying Susannah, who married thrice during the invasion and ascendancy of Henry Tudor (Henry VII), and who will die in her beloved home, Ashdon Manor, where she has known love and tragedy. As a young woman, Susannah is forced to marry James Weston—a good man, but not her beloved Giles; then James is killed in a battle to drive off Henry Tudor. Enter Arthur Trefusis—thanks to Henry now the undisputed owner of Susannah's Ashdon. Arthur is lively and a likable husband, but doomed. He supports the pretender Perkin Warbeck, who claims to be one of the murdered Princes, Edward V. Susannah will weather the Tower and a vain mission to save Arthur- -but, finally, there is Giles. Later, the love of Susannah's granddaughter Christina for Ashdon becomes an obsession—one that strains her marriage to a good man and that indirectly causes his death. Throughout, Anand offers lively portraits of the terrifying Tudor royals: Henry VII regretfully decreeing death to the pathetic Perkin Warbeck and others; and Elizabeth I on one of her processions ``so superb she scarcely looked real.'' And before each chapter are attractive, pertinent shards of poetry and commentary from earlier times. Solid historical fare, then, with a nice balance of reconstructed history and invented characters, along with their domestic turmoil.
Pub Date: July 19, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09417-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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