A high-energy, action-packed tale about feminism, injustice, and the struggle for sovereignty.
A Frenchwoman travels to Southeast Asia to serve as a doctor in a primitive clinic during the 1920s.
This historical novel opens as Dr. Andrea Monin and Lt. Roland Garnier disembark from a ship docked in Djibouti in East Africa. Andrea wants to visit the cemetery where her father is buried, and the young lieutenant insists on accompanying her in order to protect her. It is not long before they find the grave marker for Dr. Andre Frederic Monin, who died seven years earlier. The story then flashes back to show Andrea leaving France. She has abandoned her cheating husband and a disappointing medical career. As a woman practicing medicine in Lyon during the ’20s, she had been called on to treat sick pets rather than humans with ailments. She thus decided to follow in her father’s footsteps, traveling to Asia in hopes of practicing “real medicine” and contributing to a community in need. When she arrives at her final destination of Saigon, she is met by Dr. Poulaine, a colonel in the French army and the man with whom her father had worked before he died. Andrea hopes to take her father’s place at Poulaine’s government hospital, but to her consternation, her status as a “lady doctor” continues to stand in her way. She must not only earn the respect of the local patients, but also deal with the political and social unrest that permeate her new home. As the fast-paced story unfolds, it becomes increasingly questionable whether Andrea will ever find her place in Saigon. In brisk, accessible prose, Singley (Hook Up, 2014, etc.) describes a country ravaged by political unrest, French occupation, and political corruption. The intricate tale requires a certain amount of background knowledge about the region or it could become confusing. But the interpersonal conundrums of the characters are sufficiently engrossing to keep readers engaged. As the chaos in the story mounts and Andrea struggles to find her footing, Singley provides rich details about Vietnam, the French government, and the tensions between these two countries in the early 20th century.
A high-energy, action-packed tale about feminism, injustice, and the struggle for sovereignty.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973135-21-0
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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