More Disney than drama.
In Cameron’s (Puppy Tales: A Dog’s Purpose Collection, 2016, etc.) sentimental tale, a stray puppy finds a loving home, loses it after running afoul of anti–pit-bull regulations, and then, after being sent into exile, makes a wilderness trek through the Rocky Mountains home to Denver.
Consider this a reimagining of the hit film Homeward Bound minus one dog, one cat, and one human narrator. Perhaps a mix of a shepherd, mastiff, and Staffordshire but with the appearance of a pit bull, Bella narrates her tale of living under a condemned house, moving into Lucas’ loving home, and then escaping from a temporary shelter into Colorado’s wilderness. Having postponed medical school, Lucas works at a Veterans Administration facility. That gives him time to care for his military veteran mother who's suffering from PTSD. Bella brings love to the pair, but a malevolent animal control officer classifies her as a pit bull and becomes intent on euthanizing her. Reluctantly, Lucas places Bella in a foster home in Durango. Bella escapes and heads for home, sometimes traveling with Big Kitten, an orphaned cougar cub. Then Bella is picked up by a married couple. Another escape, only to be taken in by a street-dwelling, war-traumatized veteran. Then Bella’s on the road again. The narrative makes allusions to VA failures, decries poaching of endangered species, recognizes the tragedy of homelessness, and casts an empathetic eye on gay marriage, all at a brisk pace and while maintaining G-rated blood-and-guts hunting scenes. The settings are mostly defined by weather, especially vivid as the homeless man and Bella shiver through a Gunnison, Colorado, winter. The anthropomorphization of Bella may please some readers; others not so much.
More Disney than drama.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7465-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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