An odd but richly rendered sequel to an Austen classic.
In this debut novel, one of Jane Austen’s minor characters wishes to avoid the marriage trap.
Margaret Dashwood may not garner the same attention as her talented older sisters, Elinor and Marianne, but she may be the most intriguing member of the family. From a young age, she’s shared her father’s fascination with the ancient city of Pompeii, excavated from beneath the ash at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. Her father’s early death leaves the Dashwoods without a home of their own, though Margaret’s sisters quickly manage to find ideal husbands—both quite wealthy. When their mother dies a few years later, 16-year-old Margaret goes to live with Elinor and her vicar husband, Edward Ferrars. Edward encourages Margaret’s rapacious appetite for reading and her interest in the emerging field of archaeology. When she comes of age, rather than marrying, Margaret decides to seek a governess position in London. “Serving as a governess would not preclude me from marrying later,” she tells the baffled Elinor. “But until then, I should like to live in London, to take advantage of the opportunities there. Even if I have only one day in the week to myself, I should be able to spend it studying the treasures of the museums.” Instead, she gets a job as a companion to the wealthy Mrs. Jennings and begins saving money for a trip to the continent in order to see the main sights in Italy—including Pompeii. When her half brother dies, Margaret suddenly comes into money of her own for the first time, enough to finance her trip. The only problem? She has no male relatives left to escort her across the continent. A woman ahead of her time, Margaret refuses to be dissuaded. If there are no men to take her, she will just have to compose a party of female companions instead. But is the strong-willed Margaret ready for what Europe has to offer?
After covering Austen’s Sense and Sensibility from Margaret’s perspective in 50 pages, the novel sets off into the unknown territory of Regency England. Zomparelli works hard to emulate Austen’s style, though the results are rarely terribly convincing: “No mistress of a country house escapes the tribulation of the dinner guest who arrives too early, and Marianne had two perpetual albatrosses to bear. The first was the Honorable Mr. Speedwell, who could never undertake the shortest of journeys without imagining a tree fallen on the road, or troubles with a wheel.” The story includes the requisite cameos by real-life historical figures—Margaret goes hunting for fossils with pioneering paleontologist Mary Anning—as well as familiar characters from the source material (whom the author seems to enjoy killing off). The choice to make the tale a sequel to Austen’s novel isn’t altogether intuitive. Zomparelli has very different interests (science, travel) than Austen, but they are not so revisionist as to make for an obvious foil. Nevertheless, the vivid homage will likely please fans of 19th-century British novels. Yet some readers will wonder if the book might have worked better as an original story about a convention-bucking antiquarian.
An odd but richly rendered sequel to an Austen classic.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2021
ISBN: 9780578297408
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Bowker
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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