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COFFEE, SHOPPING, MURDER, LOVE

Allende’s novel offers a stylized but uneven riff on crime-fiction tropes.

Elaborate scams and workplace murders abound in this bleakly comic novel.

In fiction, the strangest things can bring together the participants in a criminal conspiracy. For Charlie and Jignesh, the alternating narrators of Allende’s novel, their connection comes via an unsuccessful date. But it turns out Charlie has a large freezer for sale, and Jignesh happens to have accidentally killed a former co-worker and is frantically trying to cover it up. The novel opens with a flash-forward to Charlie wandering through the desert in Mexico, wishing that he “had never fallen in love with [Jignesh’s] wealth and with his ravishing South Asian skin color.” If that comes off as shallow and fetishizing, that’s the point. For his part, Jignesh has a sideline in writing genre novels with characters along the lines of “winsome Celt women with a wispy mane of red hair like Princess Salmonella McFallog,” and he isn’t as wealthy as Charlie believes him to be. Gradually, the two men become immersed in more unethical activities, from Jignesh’s creative use of workplace funds to outright money laundering. Charlie’s narration is prone to withering takes on the other characters and musings on his Southern upbringing. Jignesh has a more hapless perspective on the world, leading to some comic moments, as when he ponders the appropriate thoughts to have before killing someone: “One shouldn’t pray to his family Gods when committing a crime.” But he also has a more acerbic side that emerges in moments of stress. The high concept of Allende’s novel—placing two relatively average guys who don’t have any real reason to get involved in a murder/fraud plot in the center of one—is interesting. But this ends up being a book that sinks or swims depending on how you feel about the two narrators. That said, Charlie’s penchant for digressive cinematic deep cuts—“His face is as pale as Meryl Streep’s was in The French Lieutenant’s Woman when she first sees Jeremy Irons at The Cobb in Lyme Regis’s harbor”—is endearing.

Allende’s novel offers a stylized but uneven riff on crime-fiction tropes.

Pub Date: June 21, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-63628-035-6

Page Count: 312

Publisher: Red Hen Press

Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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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

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IT STARTS WITH US

Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.

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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

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