Packed with vivid details, this tale delivers a real treat for Middle Ages history buffs.
The title character of this historical novel about the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century is determined to earn respect—not to mention renown—and to become legitimate after a fashion.
In this fourth installment of a series, readers meet Archie Douglas, the Black Douglas’ bastard son, at the age of 9. David, the young king of Scotland, is scarcely older, and the court is in France in exile. Archie believes that some people think he is “unimportant” because he is a bastard and vows to “prove them wrong. They would see what a bastard could do.” He is put under the care of Sir William Douglas, Lord Liddesdale, a cousin of Archie’s deceased father. Eventually, Archie will become Sir William’s squire and later much more. The story’s action comprises a series of clashes, mostly victorious for Archie’s side, until the fateful Battle of Neville’s Cross. King David and Sir William are captured, and Archie and his friend Will Ramsay make a daring escape. Things could hardly look worse, but Tomlin assures readers that there will be another volume. The author has a slew of books to her credit, and this one does not disappoint. Archie, who narrates, is a strong character, alternately fearless and terrified (as one would be in his situation), and proud Sir William, his mentor, is not even afraid to stand up to the king if he feels he has been ill-used. Descriptions are vibrant and violence is a given. These people play for keeps. Historical details are accurate, including the accounts of a tournament that the English host during a temporary truce and the joyful welcoming of King David on his return to Scotland. The rich backmatter features the sources researched (very impressive) and a discussion that separates the historical facts from the liberties that Tomlin has taken. This is much appreciated, but even so, the plethora of characters and often similar names invite confusion. There is also a valuable glossary. Unfortunately, some terms—hobelar, au outrance, and schiltron, for example—are missing from the list. That said, the author has done a remarkable job with a mare’s nest of historical material.
Packed with vivid details, this tale delivers a real treat for Middle Ages history buffs.Pub Date: May 4, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-8172-1447-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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