A beautiful pair of love stories and a thrilling peek into a lost world.
In this debut novel’s two parallel tales about a Florida tribe, a young man struggles to overcome grave danger to be with the woman he loves.
In 1513, Willow is 20 years old and a member of the Calusa Tribe that has occupied Florida for millennia. While out fishing, he catches a massive snook—the biggest one ever snared in Calusa history, a distinction that makes him widely known and admired. As a result, the king grants Willow a wish, and he chooses to take a series of tests to join the Wiseman Council, the “most revered club in the nation.” While Willow passes the prohibitively difficult exams, securing an important role in tribal political life, he’s much more excited about pursuing a relationship with Cylee, the “most beautiful woman in the Calusa nation.” But the Spanish are preparing to invade, and Willow’s duty is to risk his life to join the fight against their advances. Watkins artfully places this story alongside another strikingly similar one set two centuries later, in 1710. Again the protagonist is named Willow, and he’s elevated to the status of a “national hero” when he bravely defeats a company of Spanish soldiers with the assistance of his friend Bonee. This Willow is also elevated to the Wiseman Council and is revered by many as a “god in disguise.” He falls in love with a princess, Leah, and is made a prince himself, a conversion that allows him to marry the girl for whom he’s pined for years. But in this second plot, the danger to this union isn’t war but the spread of a disease carried by the Spanish that proves deadly to the Calusa, a terrible turn of events affectingly described by the author. Watkins vividly brings to life the intriguing culture of the Calusa and manages to fit two moving tales of love into one brief novel. His prose is plain and sparing but precise and powerful, though the dialogue, especially in the second narrative, can be earnestly wooden. The author provocatively raises questions about the inescapability of destiny but wisely withholds any facile answers, permitting readers the liberty to ponder them on their own.
A beautiful pair of love stories and a thrilling peek into a lost world.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-69735-471-3
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
