A prospective adoptive mother examines her past and her conscience prior to embarking on her parental journey.
Molly and her husband, Aidan, involuntarily childless attorneys in San Diego, are going through the fraught process of qualifying to adopt. Molly, 38, has a degree of trepidation about how “open” this adoption is expected to be: is the birth mother, Sienna, expecting to be part of her child’s life in perpetuity? Molly’s misgivings are understandable; she herself is the product of a family in which her birth mother, Amalia, lived close by, and she witnessed the discomfort such proximity created for her adoptive mother, Nora. Molly has not told her husband why she's now estranged from both Amalia, who's dying, and Nora—in fact, she's told him almost nothing about her past. The present narrative is interspersed with chapters flashing back 24 years to Morrison Ridge, a large tract of family-owned land in the wooded hills near Asheville, North Carolina: Molly is 14, living with her mother, Nora, and her father, Graham, a psychotherapist who has invented a new behavioral regimen, “Pretend Therapy.” Multiple sclerosis has left Graham paralyzed from the neck down. Molly is a bookish, precocious teen who types Graham’s manuscripts and accompanies him on book tours. However when she falls under the influence of a classmate, Stacy, who introduces her to older boys, the plot takes a major detour through teen-novel territory: Molly’s main preoccupation, enabled by a Judy Blume novel no less, is now losing her virginity. In the meantime, Graham and his relatives are wrangling over the fate of the Ridge: one faction wants to sell to a developer while others, including Molly’s grandmother and Graham, want to keep the land pristine. While the family argues and Molly’s hormones run wild, something else is going on that will make for the explosive revelation at novel’s end. Marred by excessive sentimentality and superfluous exposition that dilutes the drama.
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-01074-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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