Very low-key, but patient readers will savor the finely wrought prose and unexpectedly moving portrait of a woman who loses...
In her pensive third novel, Mosby (The Season of Lillian Dawes, 2001, etc.) charts the emotional progress of an ill-at-ease New Yorker who finds bittersweet fulfillment as an American in Paris.
Lavinia Gibbs learns early to present “an impassive façade” as a shield against her aristocratic family’s cruelty. Not as pretty as her mother and sister, nor as brutally self-satisfied as her father and brothers, Lavinia recognizes in herself strong sexual feelings most unbecoming to a young lady making her debut in 1917. When her stuffy fiancé’s first kiss makes it obvious that he will not satisfy those feelings, she breaks off the engagement, though she’s now in her 30s and knows her parents will consider this unforgivable. She’s quietly content to be packed off with a modest income to Paris, where she may be lonely but can direct the course of her own life. The passion she’s yearned for arrives with Gaston Lesseur, a wealthy Frenchman who hires her to inventory his dead uncle’s estate. Lavinia enters the “perpetual twilight” her mother contemptuously describes as the lot of married men’s mistresses, but twilight is her favorite time of day: “transforming the world into a fleeting dream of beauty and blue shadows, full of unnamed possibility.” She and Gaston make love, quarrel and make up, virtually oblivious to the approach of WWII. Mosby’s story seems almost as hermetically sealed as her characters’ affluent lives, focused on minute details of Lavinia’s interactions with her lover, her French neighbors and a few American expatriates of her social class. Yet by the time the Nazis enter Paris, we see that Lavinia is finally ready to emerge from the cocoon of family connections and expectations that had continued to encase her in exile. “Even if she had been raised by wolves, she was not one of them,” she realizes as she heads toward an uncertain but oddly enticing future.
Very low-key, but patient readers will savor the finely wrought prose and unexpectedly moving portrait of a woman who loses her privileges and finds herself.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-621271-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
© Copyright 2025 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.
