A time-travel treat with a captivating hero.
A novel focuses on the adventures of an attorney facing a midlife crisis.
Nyznyk’s (The First Gospel, 2017, etc.) protagonist, Jack Darrow, a 50-something lawyer, is mired in ennui: “Maybe by fifty, the real world has so overwhelmed a man that dreams disappear and hopes for adventure, romance, and excitement fade into the mundane reality of everyday life.” Not even the love of his beautiful wife, Julia, and his family is enough to bring Jack out of his funk. So, in a self-indulgent effort to find himself, he goes on a camping trip with old friend Paul Dickson. Unfortunately, the pair soon runs afoul of a trio of brothers straight out of Deliverance. Running for their lives, Jack and Paul hide in a cave only to have it collapse on them and their pursuers. When Jack awakes in the long-ago land of Estandor, he rescues an attractive woman being pursued by a dark knight. The wounded Jack, now back in his college-age body, is taken in by rebels opposed to the rule of the ruthless Cormac Canhagin, which is enforced by his Black Guard. Figuring that he’s stuck in the past, the protagonist throws in with the rebels seeking to overthrow Cormac, even after Jack gets captured. Meanwhile, in the present, Julia and family adjust to life without Jack. Nyznyk has crafted an effective cautionary tale. Characterization is strong in this enjoyable spin on Outlander in which Jack falls for the beautiful Kara but can’t forget his life with Julia. Likewise, Julia can’t move on from soul mate Jack. Cormac is a venal, entitled nobleman who has crushed the humanity out of his head knight, Silver Glen, known as The Dread to his leader’s downtrodden subjects. The best parts of the smooth-flowing narrative are the Estandor scenes and backstory, which take on the flavor of an Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp novel as man-out-of-his-time Jack rallies the rebels. The modern-day scenes, too many of which center on whether the neighborhood lecher will successfully seduce Julia, aren’t nearly as engrossing. But the tale works because readers will become invested in hoping that the new, improved Jack gets his happy ending.
A time-travel treat with a captivating hero.Pub Date: April 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73358-560-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Cross Dove Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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