A gripping tale about Cambodia that offers impeccable research and a strong sense of place.
This debut historical novel reveals the lasting reverberations of Cambodia’s brutal past.
It’s 1993 at the beginning of Badgley’s story, and American lawyer Emily Mclean is reeling from the loss of her husband, unborn daughter, and right lower leg in a car crash. In an effort to heal herself by working with people with similar injuries, Emily takes a job with an organization based in Phnom Penh that assists amputees. Her new boss, Sonny, is skeptical of Emily’s motives, believing that she is a privileged American who “has come to help herself by helping these poor people.” Emily is determined to prove him wrong. Guided by her glamorous housemate, Yvette Morceau, Emily explores Phnom Penh and falls in love with the city. A romantic spark flares between Emily and Nick Landrey, a rough-and-tumble journalist from Louisiana—the first time she’s had feelings for someone since her husband’s death. She even considers adopting a Cambodian child. Emily’s story is interspersed with flashbacks to 1977 and the first-person chronicle of Milijana Petrova, a Yugoslavian woman being held in Phnom Penh’s notorious “prison for counter-revolutionary traitors.” When Emily visits the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, a mysterious connection between herself and Milijana surfaces. Solving that mystery will change Emily’s life forever. Badgley lived in Phnom Penh and worked at the Tuol Sleng Museum, and her personal experience is apparent throughout her vivid, expertly plotted tale. Whether she’s noting that “leather shoes were known to sprout mushrooms” during the monsoon season or describing the Phnom Penh expatriate community, the author’s astute observations about weather, landscape, and personalities bring her story to life. But Badgley’s impressive character-building and nuanced understanding of Cambodian history are marred slightly by misplaced commas (“No, I don’t. But I’d like, too”) and her occasional use of dialogue as heavy-handed exposition. Still, these minor problems do not detract from the author’s passionate narrative, which will continue to surprise readers until the very end.
A gripping tale about Cambodia that offers impeccable research and a strong sense of place.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73782-650-7
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Lure Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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