A fizzy and fast-paced conclusion to a complicated family saga.
Gibbens concludes her multigenerational family drama series with this eventful thriller.
As this concluding volume in the author’s Awen Chronicles series opens, Nathan Bellamy, the art thief who served as the villain in the previous installment (Cow on Ice, 2022), sits in prison brooding over his revenge. Providentially, it seems to come in the form of his cellmate, a low-level crime syndicate enforcer named Tommaso, who agrees to use his contacts on the outside to effect the murders of the five people who brought Bellamy to justice, including Toronto architect Kent Gillespie; Bellamy’s former partner, Chloé Corbin; and Bellamy’s erstwhile girlfriend, art gallery owner Yoichi Song (“I’m tougher than I look,” Yoichi assures a friend. “Don’t let the manicures, facials, and wardrobe mislead you”). The text catches series readers up on all the jet setting and romantic goings-on of Gibbens’ large cast of characters, ranging from Bellamy’s list of murder targets to their current and former paramours, children, co-workers, and friends. The tangles of the plot involving powerful, plotting lawyer Langston Garner and surprisingly adventurous architect Kent Gillespie branch elegantly throughout the narrative. The author throws herself into narrating this sprawling, complicated story with tremendous gusto and a sharp skill at drawing characters: “Spencer liked desperation,” readers learn of Garner’s private investigator; “it fed his business enterprise. His clients were pushed beyond their limits by situations that had suddenly gotten out of hand—leading to desperation for them and opportunity for him.” This kind of quippy phrasing runs throughout the novel, although neither this nor the fleet pacing can save the proceedings from third-book syndrome: Too much of the plot will be all but incomprehensible to readers who aren’t familiar with at least the previous volume in the series. Newcomers shouldn’t start here.
A fizzy and fast-paced conclusion to a complicated family saga.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781039172432
Page Count: 366
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
