An outline, rather than a fully drawn study, of a beautiful couple's trials with addiction, their predictable redemption too...
Denise and Derrek appear to be the perfect couple, but can their love for each other and their family overcome their deepening drug addictions?
As this sketchy novella opens, Denise and Derrek are at a 12-step meeting. Derrek, whose parents were drug addicts, has decided that they need help quitting what his wife of 15 years considers merely recreational drug use. Denise, unlike her husband, came from a "good" family, and as a nurse, she believes she understands and can control both their joint cocaine use and her increasing reliance on Vicodin. What Derrek doesn't know is that Denise isn't serious about giving up a habit that she doesn't consider dangerous. What neither realizes is that both are vulnerable and that a family crisis will push them over the edge. Before long, they're both using again and moving into harder drugs that not only endanger their livelihoods and their comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle, but eventually the health and happiness of their daughters. Roby (The Reverend's Wife, 2012, etc.) keeps to her fast, sexy, moralistic style; there is little doubt that love and faith will win out, especially for such an attractive couple. What keeps the adult fairy-tale formula from completely satisfying, however, is its sketchiness. The effects of the drugs, for example, are vague. The secondary characters, such as kindly old Lula from whom Denise steals drugs, are flat stereotypes. And details, like the health scare that starts Derrek using again, are mentioned after the fact, as if the author decided on a motive too late and didn't want to bother going back. This might hold fans until the next installation of the author's Reverend Curtis Black novels, but it won't win over new readers.
An outline, rather than a fully drawn study, of a beautiful couple's trials with addiction, their predictable redemption too easily won.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-446-57250-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© 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.
