A nostalgic and intriguing story that blends a modern-day love triangle with details from Audrey Hepburn’s life.
A chef tries to save her childhood home and juggles the affections of two men from her past in this updated take on the Audrey Hepburn film Sabrina.
Emma Jansen owns a successful catering business that serves some of the most exclusive parties in New York, but she can’t escape the pull of her childhood home in Glen Cove. It wasn’t exactly her home—her parents were the hired help, and Emma lived with them in an apartment above the garage. The Audrey Hepburn Estate (so named because it shares an address with the house in the film Sabrina) was the site of some of her most cherished memories—and some of her most painful ones. She was desperately in love with Henry van der Wraak, the grandson of the estate’s owners. She also formed a deep friendship with Leo L’Unico, the son of the van der Wraaks’ driver. Now, years later, Leo is a developer intent on demolishing the estate so he can build a luxury apartment complex. Emma reconnects with Henry in her attempt to save the house from destruction, but excavating her past brings buried secrets to the surface. She still has complicated feelings for both Henry and Leo, but managing the affections of two men is far from her only problem. Emma also discovers some secrets about the estate that call into question everything she’s ever believed about her own family. Janowitz weaves in details about Audrey Hepburn’s films and also the actor's real life, including her childhood in Holland during World War II. Although the chemistry between Emma and her two love interests never quite ignites, Emma’s journey to let go of her past and solve the mystery of the estate is full of interesting historical details. Janowitz includes a fascinating author’s note that explains Hepburn’s struggle during the war as well as the many easter eggs that appear in the text.
A nostalgic and intriguing story that blends a modern-day love triangle with details from Audrey Hepburn’s life.Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781525811487
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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