Briskly paced, but the slight characterizations rely on overdone stereotypes of the überclasses.
Superrich sybarites cope with secrets, “teenstrangers” and recalcitrant contractors.
Except for the relative wealth involved, the premise of Walker’s second novel will remind readers of her first (Four Wives, 2008): A quartet of wives comes together to plan an event. Rosalyn, spouse of affable billionaire Barlow, is gatekeeper to the suburban social nirvana known as Winchester, Conn. Rookie social climber Sara, who gave up investigative journalism for marriage to Wall Street wunderkind Nick, is secretly on the pill; she’s conflicted about having a second child. (Sara and Nick occupy a McMansion-in-progress, in thrall to a builder who is overbearing and way, way over budget.) Jacks fears, based on frequent forays into her husband David’s locked briefcase, that his hedge fund has gone bust after a disastrous Vegas hotel deal and that the Feds, and possibly Mafia loan sharks, are after him. Contentedly married Eva plays only a minor role as fixer and occasionally, for reasons that are never adequately explained, agent provocateur. (Aware of Jacks’ clandestine affair with Barlow, Eva engineers a coincidence that will redirect Rosalyn’s jealous suspicions to Sara.) The wives’ organizational juggernaut is deployed on behalf of Rosalyn’s 14-year-old daughter Caitlin, a freshman at tony Winchester Academy who was caught fellating the school’s hottie-in-chief, Kyle. Trying to save face, and battling demons from her own similar imbroglio decades before, Rosalyn spearheads a parents rally at which a prominent sexologist will warn that in the new teen mores relationships, commitment and responsibility are being replaced by the Friends with Benefits phenomenon. Caitlin, the “teenstranger” (her father’s exasperated term), is infatuated with Kyle, even as she senses she’s just a puppet in mean-girl Amanda’s preppy version of Dangerous Liaisons. An Internet chat room offers solace, but is Caitlin’s virtual friend just another manipulator?
Briskly paced, but the slight characterizations rely on overdone stereotypes of the überclasses.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-37816-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
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
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
© 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.
