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ALL WE HOLD DEAR

In this sequel to Too Deep for Tears (1989), a modern-day Scottish heroine searches for her heritage in the diary of a 19th- century ancestor. Eva Crawford lives on Eader Island in the Inner Hebrides with loving parents and a devoted fiancÇ. She's a free spirit who swims naked with dolphins, scampers up cliffsides, and is gifted with the Second Sight. So why is she often taken with dark moods and an ``aching spirit''? What's wrong may be what her parents tell her on her 18th birthday: Eva was adopted; she's actually the biological daughter of Highlander Celia Ward. Finally understanding the cause of her anomie, Eva ferries to Glasgow to discover her past. There, in an ebony Chinese chest, she finds the journal of Celia's great- grandmother Ailsa Rose Sinclair, heroine of Too Deep for Tears. In the earlier book, Ailsa left her soul's mate Ian Fraser to marry Londoner William Sinclair. Here, William has died, and Ailsa returns to her beloved Glen Affric to live with her mother, Mairi, and daughter, Alanna. Like Eva, all three women are clairvoyant, empathic, and pagan, with a special spiritual connection to each other and to their sacred glen. On Alanna's wedding day, her father-in-law promises to bring financial prosperity to the glen in the form of a new hotel. Ian, passionate to keep his home uncorrupted by modern life, kills one of the new investors and takes to the hills with Ailsa. When she is wounded, Ian sacrifices his own life so that Ailsa, pregnant with their baby, can survive. A descendant of that child, Eva embraces her kinswoman's legacy. Free of the ``darkness of wondering,'' she finds her spiritual home and her soul's partner waiting in the glen. A grand mystical romance—though Davis (Sing to Me of Dreams, 1990, etc.) nearly suffocates her narrative in a Scottish bog of overwriting.

Pub Date: May 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-671-73603-5

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Pocket

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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SUMMER ISLAND

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

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