A second hardcover from veteran western writer Johnstone (after Talons of Eagles, 1995, not reviewed)this one with a bad case of Robert James Waller envysends a 40-year-old ex-Marine back to his native Georgia to fall in love with a 20-year-old waif. Larry Baldwin, a divorced, hard-as-nails Manhattan businessman, moves back to small-town Georgia to find his rootsbut instead finds Cody West, orphaned, beautiful, and honest. She reminds Larry of butterflies (it's Johnstone's literary touch, a recurring motif). Thing is, Larry's new boss, Vic Goodman, the local mover and shaker, hates her guts. The novel thus neatly divides into twothe story of Larry and Cody, and the story of Vic's meanness. After Larry meets Cody, who shocks him because she hitchhikes and crashes in bus stations, he becomes her angel, arranging a job and a car for her, falling in love with her against his better judgment. He buys a house in the country, wondering ``What the hell was this passion?,'' while Cody, for her part, is more circumspect: ``Larry, I'm afraid what I want can never be. But we'll have some memories to keep locked away in some special places.'' Finally, the two make love; lo and behold, Cody's not only a virgin but sensitive (``You have a poetic side to you''). Soon enough, though, the lovers discover that they live on ``different wave-lengths,'' especially when Cody's friends visit and have trouble opening beer bottles: ``I'd once used a broken beer bottle to kill a man,'' Larry thinks. When Vic Goodman's drug- addled son rapes Cody and nearly kills her, Larry beats up the bad guys and makes them pay through the nose: Cody is set for the rest of her life, but she never wants to see Larry again. And Larry? He stops outside the hospital, to reach for a butterfly. A sentimental wannabe Bridges of Madison County, strictly for the romance crowd.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8217-5028-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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