An exuberant fairy-tale homage with sly commentary about gender, class, church, and state.
Tudor-era sweethearts gather a crew of “Holy Pirates” to push back on tax corruption and retrieve stolen monastery treasures in Conlan’s romantic historical adventure novel.
Morwenna Goodwin, who’s 19 and “now of wife age,” receives courtship gifts from her childhood pal Henry Truelove, the 20-year-old son of a family wealthier than hers, residing in Truelove Manor near her family’s small freehold farm. Morwenna puts the gifts—which begin with a partridge in a pear tree and proceed as in the anachronistic song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”—to practical use. She uses some of the bounty to hire former monk Tom to teach her how to write and learn about equitable marriage contracts. Henry, who’s been away at court, returns home after learning that his father is facing ruinous taxes; he brings eight milkmaids along with him. Daisy, one of them, becomes a servant in nearby Blount Hall, helping to expose and resolve the misdeeds of the tax collector and his oafish son. Blount servant James, a former monastery student, shows Tom a bejeweled holy book given to him for safekeeping after monasteries were disbanded under Tudor rule. A former abbot also arises, having stashed a cache of books and other stolen treasure in the area. All’s well by novel’s end thanks to a festival play created by the town’s wealthy sisters that results in several marriages and an opportunity for the main couple and their band of “Holy Pirates” to spirit away the books to a protected new home. In this amusing, action-packed tale, Conlan effectively combines the loving parody of William Goldman’s classic The Princess Bride (1973) with the feminism of Karen Cushman’s Catherine, Called Birdy (1994). It encompasses a colorful cavalcade of characters, who also include an actual ex-pirate; a formerly enslaved sailor; and displaced nuns, one of whom was once a pirate hostage. Many of these characters get to express snarky social criticism during their adventures, including Tom, who notes that church officials are “sneaky and venomous as snakes, and ever changing what be true and what heresy.”
An exuberant fairy-tale homage with sly commentary about gender, class, church, and state.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1639888009
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A heartfelt look at taking second chances, in life and in love.
Two struggling authors spend the summer writing and falling in love in a quaint beach town.
January Andrews has just arrived in the small town of North Bear Shores with some serious baggage. Her father has been dead for a year, but she still hasn’t come to terms with what she found out at his funeral—he had been cheating on her mother for years. January plans to spend the summer cleaning out and selling the house her father and “That Woman” lived in together. But she’s also a down-on-her-luck author facing writer’s block, and she no longer believes in the happily-ever-after she’s made the benchmark of her work. Her steadily dwindling bank account, though, is a daily reminder that she must sell her next book, and fast. Serendipitously, she discovers that her new next-door neighbor is Augustus Everett, the darling of the literary fiction set and her former college rival/crush. Gus also happens to be struggling with his next book (and some serious trauma that unfolds throughout the novel). Though the two get off to a rocky start, they soon make a bet: Gus will try to write a romance novel, and January will attempt “bleak literary fiction.” They spend the summer teaching each other the art of their own genres—January takes Gus on a romantic outing to the local carnival; Gus takes January to the burned-down remains of a former cult—and they both process their own grief, loss, and trauma through this experiment. There are more than enough steamy scenes to sustain the slow-burn romance, and smart commentary on the placement and purpose of “women’s fiction” joins with crucial conversations about mental health to add multiple intriguing layers to the plot.
A heartfelt look at taking second chances, in life and in love.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0673-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Jove/Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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