Despite many positive components, including vivid descriptions of New Mexico’s rich culture; endearing dogs and horses; and...
Characters from three previous novels—Solomon’s Oak, Finding Casey and Blue Rodeo—merge in Mapson’s latest, featuring a young mother and an older woman who must cope with unforeseen challenges.
Skye Elliot was once an excellent student who dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, but a rodeo circuit rider named Rocky, an unplanned pregnancy and a substance abuse problem derailed her ambitions. Fresh from a long stint in rehab, all Skye now wants is to reclaim her daughter and get a job, but she’s taken off guard when her ex-husband doesn’t pick her up as expected. Instead, her long-absent father—who’s rechristened himself Owen Garret—collects her from the clinic in the New Mexico desert with her beloved horse in tow, and Skye has no choice but to join him. As they embark upon a journey underscored by Skye’s anger toward her parents and her frantic search for her daughter, Gracie, Owen offers a straightforward explanation for his extended silence: He was in prison. Skye’s resentment begins to dissipate as she views Owen, and eventually others, from a different perspective, but her search for her child hits several obstacles: namely, a broken-down car and a lack of money. Pausing briefly to retrieve Owen’s old dog, they finally land in Santa Fe, where, unbeknownst to Owen, his lost love now lives. Painter Margaret Yearwood has recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and worried as she is about her ability to cope with the future, she's even more concerned about her adult son. Peter has been deaf since 15 and has recently gotten a cochlear implant, but he suffers from other demons, including a broken marriage and a drinking problem. Mapson connects each character via a ghost’s intervention, intuitive animals and a couple’s new venture, but the narrative loses clarity and stalls with the introduction of multiple back stories.
Despite many positive components, including vivid descriptions of New Mexico’s rich culture; endearing dogs and horses; and an inspirational message about surmounting shortcomings, the novel’s lumbering pace outweighs all.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62040-973-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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