An emotional portrait of three women dealing with unexpected change.
A family is thrown into chaos in 1990s Southern California in Camarillo’s debut historical novel.
On June 17, 1994—the same day that O.J. Simpson fled police in a white Ford Bronco—Brenda Lockhart attends a party and learns that her husband, Frank, is having an affair. He soon moves out of their house, leaving Brenda to care for their two teenage daughters, Allison and Peggy, a task for which she isn’t very skilled—particularly as the household takes a financial hit. Practical, organized Peggy wants to be an accountant but ends up working with her father at the post office after she turns 18. She has an affair with an older co-worker who’s uninterested in commitment, and the fallout from the relationship further complicates her plans. Flighty Allison is dating a surfer named Kevin Nelsonthat none of her family members like, but that only seems to increase his appeal in her eyes. She lives with his family for a time, but Kevin is abusive, and Allison blames herself for his behavior. She also shoplifts and gets mixed up with Kevin’s family’s drug business—all of which eventually catches up with her. Throughout, Brenda obsesses over every detail of the Simpson case as more details are revealed, neglecting to shower or do household chores. All three women must find ways to navigate themselves out of difficult situations. Brenda comes off as judgmental and unwilling to compromise at first, and as a result, readers may find her cold and unsympathetic. However, as the novel progresses, she matures as a character, moving to a more affordable place to live, finding a job, and becoming a more attentive mother. The author uses the Simpson trial as an indicator for Brenda’s growth; by the time the verdict is rendered, she’s doing better for herself than when the legal proceedings began, and she’s less consumed by them. Peggy and Allison aren’t always likable, either, but they also learn to make better decisions, and the novel’s ending is a satisfying one.
An emotional portrait of three women dealing with unexpected change.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64742-100-7
Page Count: 342
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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