This snapshot of life in a place where winter can be unspeakably cruel, where simply staying alive is a victory, proves...
Ekbäck takes readers on a journey to Swedish Lapland in 1717, a harsh and unforgiving place where the supernatural bleeds over into the difficult lives of the few settlers trying to make it through a hardscrabble winter.
It's June, and 14-year-old Fredericka and Dorotea, her 6-year-old sister, are herding goats in the glade near their cabin when they stumble across the horribly mutilated body of a man. Ever since the family moved to Blackäsen Mountain from their seacoast home, they've spent most of their time preparing for the difficult winter headed their way. Their parents, Paavo and Maija, recently migrated from Finland after trading their boat for a patch of ground and a cabin. Paavo couldn’t wait to leave fishing once he discovered his hereditary aversion to water. Now they're wondering what type of place they’ve settled in, with murdered men and secrets swirling around them. The dead man, identified as Eriksson, had been missing for three days, but no one seems particularly disturbed at his slaying, and word is out that bad things happen on the mountain. Maija decides to keep investigating Eriksson’s death, even though it’s not a popular move with the mountain's other inhabitants, and soon begins uncovering evidence of supernatural happenings on Blackäsen, along with a litany of unexplained deaths and events. And despite the unpopularity of Maija’s moves, she refuses to let it go, even when events begin to spin out of her control and her family is threatened. Ekbäck's straightforward prose lacks nuance, but her first novel takes readers into places that few will ever have gone.
This snapshot of life in a place where winter can be unspeakably cruel, where simply staying alive is a victory, proves irresistible.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60286-252-4
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Weinstein Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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