A purely entertaining adventure novel of a fearless woman in a most dangerous line of work.
McMillin (The Butcher’s Daughter, 2015, etc.) continues the story of the fictional pirate-queen Bloody Mary in this swashbuckling sequel.
In the previous installment, things had just begun to look up for Lady Mary, the smuggler leader and the illegitimate heir to an Irish royal line. Shortly after helping defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588—and thus repaying a debt she owed to Queen Elizabeth I—Mary and her crew killed the leaders of a rival smuggler clan, the Síol Faolcháin. Unfortunately, this victory begets tragedy when Kayne Dowlin, the leader of the Síol Faolcháin survivors, ambushes the now-pregnant Mary in a remote mill, murdering her lover, James Hunter. Later, after leaving her newborn daughter in the hands of friends, Mary sets out to reassemble her crew and reacquire her ships before checking in with her patron, the queen. Elizabeth suggests that Mary join the massive retaliatory expedition that Sir Francis Drake and Sir Black John Norreys are planning against Spain. For both Mary and Elizabeth, the order of the day is lex talionis, the law of retaliation—an eye for an eye, or, as Mary prefers it, “blood for blood.” But as Mary well knows, revenge is a dangerous pursuit, and it will take her from the Iberian peninsula to the New World and back to Ireland. McMillin’s prose, as narrated by Mary, is as full of romance and swagger as one would expect in a tale of a pirate captain: “A biting wind ripping across the harbor cut into my bones as I walked my horse down the narrow streets of the old Barbican Quarter where Drake was using the home of a wealthy merchant as his headquarters.” The author’s aim seems to be to transport Mary to as many colorful locales as possible, and he certainly does so over the course of this book. Although the characters that surround her are all pretty stock, the novel upholds the fine tradition of old high-seas adventure stories with a pace that doesn’t let up until the final cutlass clatters to the deck.
A purely entertaining adventure novel of a fearless woman in a most dangerous line of work.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9838179-4-9
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Hephaestus Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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