An engaging continuation of a historically accurate, emotionally riveting trilogy.
The second book Rabbani’s (Doctor Margaret’s Sea Chest, 2014) Azadi series follows the adventures and tribulations of an American female doctor in 1850s India.
Fresh from Johns Hopkins in North America, Walli started practicing at a hospital in Delhi. He was asked to return a sea chest found in the basement of the Delhi hospital that belonged to a pioneering 19th-century American female doctor named Margaret Wallace. Margaret was remarkable, in part, because so few Americans, let alone women, ventured into India at that time to practice medicine. Before returning the sea chest to Margaret’s living relatives, Walli and his family opened it to discover a host of artifacts, including Margaret’s diaries. The first book of the series introduced the extensive cast, including Walli’s 19th-century grandfather, and the second focuses on Margaret’s response to the murder of her beloved Robert and the attempts of corrupt officials to oust her from her position. Along the way, Margaret fends off various pigheaded men who forcefully attempt to seduce her. To safeguard her social position and protect herself, Margaret can’t cry out for help during these encounters; she must engineer her escape either by literally running out of rooms or waiting for the opportune knock of a servant. These details, along with the wrenching but historically accurate medical scenes (including a birth), give the book a sense of authenticity. Margaret’s struggles make her endearing as a character, and as the narrative unspools, we begin to see hints of how she will ultimately connect to Walli and his own struggles as a young doctor in 1960s Delhi. Although the prose can occasionally be long-winded (“What on earth he is driving at, I thought. Then I heard his next words that rooted me to the spot. I felt Catherine hold my hand, and squeeze it gently, as if to give me some strength”), overall, the writing is competent and keeps the story moving forward.
An engaging continuation of a historically accurate, emotionally riveting trilogy.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9938635-0-9
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Historical Fiction Novels
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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