Warmhearted country romance, from the author of, most recently, Bebe’s By Golly Wow (2000).
Ain’t nothing like the real thing.
Terri Mills has it all: degree from Harvard, career at a prestigious law firm that includes high-stakes deal-making for the city of Chicago, and the perfect man: Derek Houser, a lawyer with a politician’s charisma. Being black meant being the best—and nothing’s ever slowed Terri down. But her Grandma Ollie, who raised her, has been seeing signs—and there’s no arguing with the old lady. Didn’t she foretell that her only daughter would die while giving birth to Terri, and didn’t it happen? Now that Terri and Derek are engaged, Grandma Ollie has to write their names in the old family Bible, but the pen runs out of ink before she can add Derek’s name. So she’s not surprised when Terri finds out that Derek’s been cheating on her and calls off the engagement. Then Grandma Ollie shatters her hip in a fall, and Terri goes back to Arkansas to care for her. The old woman floats in and out of consciousness and recalls her own lost love: Hank, a honey gatherer for a local farmer, the sweetest man she ever knew. But he had to disappear after the farmer tried to burn him to death in a barn, and Ollie married Wesley, another good man. Now, even when all hell breaks loose back in the city’s legal department, Terri stays on, soaking up the atmosphere and memories of the small town and learning more about her roots. Lynnwood Conway, a hospital volunteer, reads aloud to her grandmother, and Terri just melts at the sound of his deep voice. But can she really love a country boy like Lynnwood, who’s got nothing but a pickup truck and the farmhouse his parents left him?
Warmhearted country romance, from the author of, most recently, Bebe’s By Golly Wow (2000).Pub Date: March 10, 2003
ISBN: 0-525-94716-7
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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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