Domestic drama with an offbeat, rural flavor.
A man heads from LA to his native Australia to check on his ailing mother and ends up refereeing a host of domestic squabbles instead.
Daniel, the narrator of Francis’ likable if unpolished third novel (Stray Dog Winter, 2009, etc.), is a lawyer planning a comfortable Christmas with his new girlfriend, Isabel, when his mother, Ruthie, calls from rural southeast Australia saying she’ll be “dead as Dickens by the end of the year.” Upon his arrival, though, it’s clear mom lured him back to help with disarray on the homestead. Ruthie has long been estranged from Daniel’s philandering father, Earley, who has stoked enough jealousy and anger in a tenant, Sharen, that she set fire to a car on the property. All three have gathered up a generation or two’s worth of resentments, and the place is feral: Sharen keeps a horse in a spare room in her cottage, and Sharen’s son, Reggie, openly spies on Daniel. But Francis proves that this reckless landscape also has a darkly seductive pull, underscored by Daniel’s growing attraction to Sharen, an attractive pot-smoking free spirit. Their ill-advised and speedy fling (the novel takes place over the course of a week) is the novel’s main energy source, to the point where other elements pale in comparison. Earley and the other locals are relatively distant figures (Isabel commands a lot of the word count but plays a minor role), and while Reggie owns the stage in the brief interludes he narrates, the threats of the arrival of his father on the scene don’t amount to much. Ultimately this is a conventional midlife crisis tale, but one bolstered by Francis’ sharp language about a landscape where “death and hardship are passed off...like so many handkerchiefs, laughed away with a weary acceptance.”
Domestic drama with an offbeat, rural flavor.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61902-787-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Print the bumper sticker—"I'd Rather Be Living in an Elin Hilderbrand Novel."
Back to St. John with the Steele family, whose tragic loss and horrifying discovery have yielded an exciting new life.
In Winter in Paradise (2018), Hilderbrand introduced Midwestern magazine editor Irene Steele and her adult sons, Baker and Cash, then swept them off to the island of St. John after paterfamilias Russell Steele was killed in a helicopter crash with his secret mistress, leaving a preteen love child and a spectacular villa. While the first volume left a lot up in the air about Russell’s dubious business dealings and the manner of his death, this installment fills in many of the blanks. All three Steeles made new friends during their unexpected visit to the island in January, and now that’s resulted in job offers for Irene and Cash and the promise of new love for single dad Baker. Why not move to St. John and into the empty villa? Mother, sons, and grandson do just that. Both the dead mistress’s diary and a cadre of FBI agents begin to provide answers to the questions left dangling in Volume 1, and romantic prospects unfold for all three Steeles. Nevertheless, as a wise person once said, shit happens, combusting the family’s prospects and leading to a cliffhanger ending. On the way, there will be luscious island atmosphere, cute sundresses, frozen drinks, “slender baguette sandwiches with duck, arugula and fig jam,” lemongrass sugar cookies, and numerous bottles of both Krug and Dom Pérignon, the latter served by a wiseass who offers one of his trademark tasting notes: “This storied bubbly has notes of Canadian pennies, your dad’s Members Only jacket, and…‘We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together.’ ” You'll be counting the days until you can return to the Virgin Islands with these characters in the concluding volume of the trilogy.
Print the bumper sticker—"I'd Rather Be Living in an Elin Hilderbrand Novel."Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-43557-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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