Like its main character, appealing, sweet, old-fashioned—and, at heart, very sad.
An unassuming yet magnetic older woman becomes possessed by the notion of acquiring an Oscar de la Renta dress.
This droll little fairy tale of a novel by fashion writer Norwich (Learning to Drive, 1996, etc.) tells the story of Emilia Brown, known exclusively as Mrs. Brown, a quiet, serious, hardworking woman of 66 who has lived all her life in the small town of Ashville, Rhode Island, est. 1649. Mrs. Brown “was not a career woman”—her current jobs are cleaning a beauty parlor and taking in mending—“avoided excesses of any sort,” “tried never to let a tear drop,” and “didn’t have a bucket list.” Yet despite her plain Yankee exterior, she has a dignity and luminosity of spirit that draws people to her, at least those people with the sensitivity to see what lies behind the wren’s feathers. The catty beauticians in her salon are not in this group. Among Mrs. Brown’s devoted fans are her 23-year-old tenant, Alice, a thoroughly modern girl from Vancouver who wears motorcycle boots, tight jeans, and a T-shirt that says I’LL STOP WEARING BLACK WHEN THEY INVENT A DARKER COLOR; a famous biracial fashion model named Florida James, staying with Mrs. Brown while she finishes up at the local college; and a fashionista named Rachel Ames, who was the personal assistant to the great lady of Ashville until her death. This great lady, Mrs. Groton, was Mrs. Brown’s lifelong idol, and she eagerly signs up for the job of helping inventory her house for the estate auction. In the process, she sees a dress, a ladylike black sheath with a jacket, that she becomes obsessed with, refocusing her life around the plan of amassing thousands of dollars and traveling to New York to get it. What remains a mystery until the very end of the novel is the occasion for which she needs such a thing. As Alice thinks to herself one night after the two have their regular evening visit, “I may not always understand [her],” but “she’s my Mrs. Brown.”
Like its main character, appealing, sweet, old-fashioned—and, at heart, very sad.Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4423-8607-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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