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Russian Woman, A Siberian in New York

Name: Russian Woman, A Siberian in New York
Author: X.R. Leblanc
ISBN: 978-0692234396

by X.R. Leblanc ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2014

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Leblanc’s debut novel is the first of a trilogy revolving around a beautiful woman from Siberia trying to make her way in New York City.
Although she has a rich, albeit unattractive husband and a job as a server at the most renowned restaurant in the Siberian capital of Krasnoyarsk, Olga Kotova longs for more. When she waits on the striking, wealthy Svetlana, who tells her about the United States, Olga knows precisely what she wants—“a life of wealth in America.” After traversing a complex, expensive maze of bureaucratic red tape, Olga finally attains her U.S. visa and arrives in New York City. During her monthlong visit, she meets wealthy investment banker Robert Thompson at a glamorous party. Robert, although reeling from his ex-fiancee’s unfaithfulness, is taken with all the beautiful foreign women at the party, including Olga. The two don’t meet again, however, until Olga’s second trip to America. This time, her luck changes for the worse: Her cash is stolen; she must find work, and she doesn’t have a work visa. The only jobs available to a Russian woman with no papers are in the sex trade—a strip club, a “happy ending” spa and/or prostitution. Olga finally sees a way out with Robert. He pays for her to attend design school and seems to genuinely care about her. But when the financial crisis puts Robert’s firm in bankruptcy, things start to fall apart for both of them. Leblanc’s pace is lively, and he nimbly keeps his characters and plotlines clear. The dialogue, however, can be stiff. For example, after Olga has a passionate encounter with a lover, he tells her it was amazing. She replies, “Yes, it was. I like you.” Readers may find Leblanc’s depiction of the investment banking world distasteful. The fabulous soirees are often little more than glammed-up, orgiastic frat parties. Money is king in this universe; art, literature, creativity and culture are largely absent. Perhaps highlighting the excesses of Wall Street is Leblanc’s point, but that message may be lost in this world of privilege.
A somewhat bleak look into a realm of rich men and the women who love them.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2014

ISBN: 978-0692234396

Page Count: 236

Publisher: RW Publishers

Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.