An engrossing, well-told tale of a father and daughter separated by decades.
In this literary novel, a minister deals with the reappearance of his secret child.
The Rev. David Wilder is a man of God. Married to the same woman for years, he oversees his congregation in the Blue Ridge Mountains, lending his parishioners a hand when they need it and spending his free time fishing in the cool waters of the Quanasee River. But when he gets a letter from a woman claiming to be his long-lost love child, he’s frozen in place, unsure of what to tell his wife, Tallulah, who never knew about the baby and is currently dying of cancer. What’s more, he made a promise years ago to the infant’s mother, one he never plans to break. The woman who wrote the letter, Molly Westbrook, is a young biology teacher in Georgia. Raised by adoptive parents, she’s never known much about her origins, and now that she is about to become a mother herself, she’s interested in connecting with her birth father. When Tallulah dies, David is sent into a spiral of memory and regret, refusing to meet with Molly even as she circles closer and closer. Will the guilt he feels about what happened in the past prevent him from seeing his only child? Lovett’s prose is elegant and descriptive, as here where David visits his hometown after decades away: “The Spinning Wheel Café looked unchanged. David slowed the car to a crawl and peered out at the café. The red-lettered wooden sign over the entrance gave him an eerie feeling of déjà vu; even the daily specials were still taped to the glass.” The narration shifts effectively between David’s and Molly’s points of view and between the past of the 1960s and the present of the ’90s. The novel is perhaps a bit long for the amount of story, and the plot unfolds in a fairly predictable way, but the reading experience is a rich one filled with feelings of regret, grief, and longing.
An engrossing, well-told tale of a father and daughter separated by decades.Pub Date: July 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73646-400-7
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Words of Passion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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