Gear (People of the Lightning, 1995, etc.) picks up the adventures of Boston Brahman Richard Hamilton, begun in The Morning River (1996), carrying him from untested student of philosophy and priggish young gentleman of society to maturation and manhood on the virgin frontier of the American West in the 1820s. The story resumes with Richard indentured to rough mountain man Travis Hartman and obliged to work on a keelboat bound for the Yellowstone, where the boat's owner, Dave Green, hopes to establish an illegal trading post. Travis is committed to making a man of the boyish Richard, who has already proved his mettle by killing a Pawnee warrior and rescuing the beautiful Heals Like a Willow, a Shoshone mystic who's smitten by the handsome but elitist Bostonian. For the slow first half of this sequel, Richard broods over the loss of his honor owing to happenstances revealed in The Morning River (they included robbery and murder)—matters that, like the frontier around him, are at odds with his sophomoric philosophical understanding of civilization's established values. Finally, though, the plot begins to move forward with a speed that makes the ponderous first 200 pages worth the journey. Richard is bloodied and badly wounded in a pitched battle, and he finds his devotion to the memory of his Boston love, Laura Templeton, competing with his newfound affection for the Shoshone girl. Ultimately, though, Richard is saved by true love—both in Boston and in the West—and reconciles his philosophical studies with frontier and human actualities. The stage is well set for volume three. All the sterotypical Indians talk like Oxford dons, and all the rustic whites speak in dialectical frontier gibberish; but, still, Gear presents the early American West with a rare, salty accuracy of detail. The action scenes are exciting, the romance ones only marginally sentimental.
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-86330-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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