The gathering suspense is complemented by nuanced characterization in a pleasingly unpredictable work.
Erotic intrigue, deep-sea diving and clients from hell make for a lively mix in this German author’s fourth novel (In Free Fall, 2010, etc.).
Poor Sven. The German expat runs a diving business for tourists on a Spanish island of volcanic rock in the Atlantic. He’s a superb instructor, never more assured than on the ocean bed; his companion, Antje, handles the admin. It’s a sweet life until his new clients arrive. Jola, accompanied by her older partner, Theo, is a stunning beauty, the star of Germany’s most popular soap. She’s on a mission: She needs to fine-tune her diving skills to land the part of Lotte Haas, pioneer female diver, in an upcoming movie. Signs of trouble between the couple emerge on their first dive. Jola shuts off Theo’s air valve, causing him to panic; Sven is furious and reads them the riot act. Their fights, verbal and physical, illustrate a wretched co-dependency like that of George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. For all her fame, Jola is deeply insecure; Theo, a writer whose one novel was published 10 years ago, is her flawed father figure. Sven gets sucked in: Finding Jola’s appeal overwhelming, he comes close to having sex with her when she offers herself. She’s a manipulator, and we know from her diary entries that Sven’s involvement is crucial to her dark strategy, though she hadn’t reckoned on the long-suffering Antje leaving her mate. Zeh guides us through these developments skillfully, and the underwater scenes are as compelling as those on land; she’s been there. Things come to a head at a dinner party on a tycoon’s yacht, where Jola learns her archrival will be playing Lotte, and Theo taunts her mercilessly. The well-orchestrated climax occurs the next day, as Sven explores an underwater wreck while Theo and Jola assist from a chartered vessel. Mischief’s afoot. Will they all survive?
The gathering suspense is complemented by nuanced characterization in a pleasingly unpredictable work.Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-53758-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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