A formulaic romance in a fascinating setting.
A spunky young woman and a brooding young man fall in love when she comes to work on his family’s sheep farm.
Set in the Australian Outback, Capper’s debut novel is a romance between Charles Carmody, who runs his family’s sheep station, and Jenna MacKenzie, the high-spirited woman hired as their new “jillaroo,” or farmhand. Jenna, who takes the job at the last minute to replace her injured brother, is immediately attracted to Charles, and the feeling is mutual. Yet Charles—who “always found women wanting; too emotional, too flighty, or too selfish; or too conniving, maybe too demanding”—vowed never to have women set foot on Carmody Plains again. He expresses his burgeoning feelings for Jenna by being rude and cold to her. As expected, the two banter and argue before giving in to their deep-seated attraction. A series of secondary characters, including Charles’ family, his friend Tony, and Jenna’s friend Thea, round out the story and provide more colorful support to the central plot. Capper clearly has a great feeling and affection for the Australian bush, and the details she includes about sheep shearing are quite interesting. The Australian terms she works into the narrative mostly integrate seamlessly into the story. Her descriptions of the landscape—e.g., the kookaburras “laughing down by the water” and the “bell-like sounds of top-knot pigeons”—are lovely and evocative. Yet the plot itself is quite predictable, and much of the story unfolds through clunky exposition instead of developing more organically. For example, when Charles is first introduced, the text states outright that “Charles had always been very wary with his romantic relationships. His father had had a disastrous second marriage….He didn’t want to go the same way his father had.” Such information could have been presented more gradually and subtly through character development; cramming it together all at once reeks of too much telling instead of showing. This novel is intended as the first in a series, so future outings will hopefully allow for improved character development while still maintaining the sense of awe and wonder in the Outback.
A formulaic romance in a fascinating setting.Pub Date: March 11, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 187
Publisher: Australian eBook Publisher
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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