Powerfully despairing, Graham Greenelike tale of romance and alienation in the blasted African bush, from our foremost chronicler of Washington's faceless bureaucracy and the lives it so blithely consumes (Last Train from Berlin, 1994, etc.). As the Vietnam War makes a mess of US foreign policy in Southeast Asia, footloose American foreign-service careerist Hugh Mathews finds himself transferred from Eden-like, pre-invasion Lebanon to a grim, gloomy diplomatic compound in the former Belgian Congo. A bachelor with little patience for political frippery (he likens diplomacy to ``an old whore trying to remember when she'd been a virgin''), he's resigned to terminal futility—until he falls for Blakely Ogden, the bronzed, blond wife of the embassy's insipid consul, Jeffrey. Childless and stifled by a loveless marriage, Blakely confides her fascination with tribal masks and other artifacts of African culture. Hoping to experience something more than the sublime ennui of diplomatic protocol, and perhaps discover some interesting antiques for his friend, Mathews begins to run pointless errands in the blighted, inhospitable countryside with fellow loner Ken McAuliffe, a burned-out idealist who ``like most incorrigibly honest people, had no sense of the mystery in himself.'' After a passionate affair with Mathews, Blakely flees her lover and her husband, leaving no forwarding address. Then McAuliffe quits the service and is blown to bits by a land mine while helping refugees escape, and Mathews finds himself banished for his misdemeanors- -among them the discovery that his local drinking buddies are outlaw revolutionaries. He ends up back in Washington with a dull desk job. Overwhelmed by a life of so much futility, Mathews is suddenly reborn when he stumbles on Blakely again. Together, the two finally experience what passes for contentment in the rustic Virginia woods. Thick with bilious resentment and impotent rage: a trenchant, eloquently crafted drama of lost souls who find salvation where they least expect it.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-4425-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
With characters you care for, a smooth, engaging plot and an interesting reflection on values and success, romance/women’s...
Sonnet Romano has spent her adult years working hard to make a name for herself out in the real world, far away from her idyllic hometown, Willow Lake. But when life takes some unexpected turns, she may just realize that everything she’s been looking for is right back where she started.
Sonnet has checked off most of the big boxes on her "must-do-before-age-thirty" list, and she’s over-the-moon about her life in Manhattan, her job with UNESCO and the opportunities on the horizon from winning a prestigious international program fellowship. But everything comes to a screeching halt when she learns her newly married mother—who had Sonnet as a teenager and raised her as a single mom—is pregnant and sick. Forsaking the fellowship, Sonnet moves back to Willow Lake to be with her mother, risking disapproval from her father, who’s running for the U.S. Senate, and her fledgling boyfriend, who’s working on her father’s campaign. She accepts a job on a reality show being shot in the town, featuring an infamous female rapper and bunch of inner-city kids, and learns that her estranged best friend has been hired as the lead cameraman. Sonnet and Zach have been friends forever, but he is part of her past, and they are on different paths in life. Despite a sizzling newfound attraction between them, she wants her mom to get well, the baby to be born and the show to be wrapped, so she can get back to the city and her own fast track to the successful, prestigious future she’s always worked toward. But slowing down has a funny way of forcing Sonnet to take stock, and maybe her idea of a perfect life will alter with a little help from the old and new important people in her life and the picture-perfect town she grew up in.
With characters you care for, a smooth, engaging plot and an interesting reflection on values and success, romance/women’s fiction favorite Wiggs sends up another charming winner in the Lakeshore Chronicles series.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1384-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Balancing emotion, humor, and a redemptive theme, Higgins hits all the right notes with precision, perception, and panache.
Years after escaping her tiny Maine community and completely reinventing herself, Nora Stuart is coming home to heal from an accident, determined to forge new connections, especially with her distant mother and angry niece.
Nora grew up on a tiny Maine island and suffered her father’s abandonment, becoming an overweight, miserable adolescent, scorned by classmates and, even more devastating, by her beautiful younger sister. But when she wins a coveted scholarship, she transforms her life, shedding the weight and gaining a medical degree. She settles into an exciting life in Boston until tragedy strikes and a shaken Nora is surviving but not thriving. After she’s hit by a van, she decides to go back home to Maine to heal—both physically and psychologically—knowing it won’t be easy, since her relationship with the island and many of its residents is, well, complicated. This includes Luke Fletcher, her biggest rival for the scholarship and the island's favored son. It also includes her mother—an almost comically laconic Mainer who can barely muster a conversation with Nora but coos at her pet bird and offers “hug therapy” to wounded souls—and her niece, Poe, daughter of the aforementioned sister, who is now serving time. One friend and ally, however, is Luke’s twin, Sullivan, whose daughter, Audrey, has weight issues Nora can relate to. Nora steps in to help at the community clinic, tries to break through her mother’s prickly exterior, helps Poe and Audrey find common ground, and makes new friendships while tightening some old ones, but old and new resentments rise to the surface, too. Nora has lots to unpack and sift through, but figuring out who she is and wants to be is a powerful, entertaining journey.
Balancing emotion, humor, and a redemptive theme, Higgins hits all the right notes with precision, perception, and panache.Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-488-02926-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harlequin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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