A complex thriller that offers intense romance and suspense.
When a serial killer strikes a Missouri plantation, a slave and her lover discover they must outwit a cunning and devious psychopath in this historical novel.
Matthew Colburn is the scion of a prosperous Missouri family. His parents hope he will become a doctor and carry on the family legacy as owner of their plantation with a wealthy bride by his side. Matthew dreams of training as an architect and pursuing a romance with Sarah, a beautiful slave on the plantation. Sarah is attracted to Matthew, but because of their positions in society, they feel romance is an impossibility. In the spring of 1850, a mystery unfolds when Mali, a teenage slave, disappears one evening. Her sister, Anna, initially believes there is an innocent explanation, but then she also vanishes under curious circumstances. At the same time, Matthew and Sarah face a crossroads in their friendship. Matthew’s parents want him to wed his spoiled cousin, Francesca, while two potential suitors ask for Sarah’s hand in marriage. Unable to deny their feelings, Matthew and Sarah elope, but their happiness is fraught with danger. When two more people disappear, the Colburns discover a killer is in their midst, a murderer with a special interest in Matthew and Sarah. This series opener from DuBois (A Tale as Old as Time, 2018, etc.) is a richly detailed historical thriller brimming with intriguing, well-developed characters and a fast-paced plot that offers a plethora of surprising twists and turns. Matthew is a dynamic and multilayered hero. Devoutly religious, he objects to slavery and strives to treat everyone with respect and dignity. This sentiment extends to his dealings with Sarah. Despite his attraction to her, he refuses to take advantage of his position to coerce her into a physical relationship. This restraint helps create and maintain the romantic tension in his connection with Sarah. He is complemented by Sarah, an intelligent and strong-willed woman who tries to avoid any negative repercussions for his family because of their liaison. The author successfully balances the romance with a gripping murder mystery that, while violent, is never gratuitous.
A complex thriller that offers intense romance and suspense.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973100-17-1
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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