by Edwin Thomas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 2005
Thomas is a robust storyteller, with a shipshape plot that would please any mariner. Fast-moving, suspenseful fun.
Find the Frenchman! A stirring chase across England after an escaped French convict is the stuff of this second installment in a projected trilogy of the Napoleonic Wars (The Blighted Cliffs, 2004).
The year is 1806. Young Martin Jerrold has now been promoted to naval captain, in charge of 800 French prisoners on a hulk, a stripped-down vessel docked at Chatham. This suits Jerrold just fine. It keeps him out of naval action (nothing beats self-preservation) and allows frequent visits by his mistress Isobel. But disaster looms. Jerrold’s interpreter, the prisoner Dumont, escapes, dressed in Isobel’s clothes, just as an imperious Horse Guards officer, Major Lebrett, arrives, demanding to see Dumont, who possesses some hugely important papers. On learning of Dumont’s escape, Lebrett relieves Jerrold of his command. By now Dumont is en route to London, as is the unfortunate Jerrold, summoned to a meeting at the Admiralty. There the First Lord also emphasizes the importance of catching Dumont. Even the royal family is involved. Lebrett is working for the Prince of Wales, while the Admiralty supports the King. Jerrold is caught in the middle of factional intrigue, and Lebrett is his nemesis. Still, he has a happy-go-lucky temperament and a powerful ally in Nevell, a kind of secret-service operative. The pair almost capture Dumont in London, but he escapes again. here follows a wild journey to Plymouth, across desolate Dartmoor, with Lebrett a constant threat. Soon there will be a shootout on the beach; a dramatic meeting at the Brighton Pavilion between Jerrold and the Prince’s mistress, who will reveal the secret of Dumont’s papers; and a final showdown at sea, from which Jerrold will emerge with credit.
Thomas is a robust storyteller, with a shipshape plot that would please any mariner. Fast-moving, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-32513-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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by Edwin Thomas
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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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
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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