A meandering tale of desire and human folly.
Avery traces the history of a possibly cursed opal ring in her latest historical novel.
Objects carry their histories with them. When James Newcomb Sr., a maker of optical lenses, buys a silver box of jewelry from a group of peddlers in the English countryside, he has no idea what’s in store for the finest piece in the lot: a magnificent opal set in a gold filigree ring. After his death, James’ daughter, Electra, allows the ring to be stolen by a conniving portrait painter—and his other daughter, Tally, murders the man in order to steal it back! The resulting scandal loses their brother, James Jr., his spot on Capt. Cook’s voyage to observe the Transit of Venus, forcing him (with the ring in tow) to sign aboard a doomed arctic mission that claims the lives of all aboard. When the frozen ship is discovered decades later, someone steals the ring from the dead sailor’s effects. From there, the ring finds its way to several more owners, from the Queen of Spain to a pair of marooned master thieves to a marine biologist and beyond, winding its way through several centuries of human obsession and leaving a trail of tragedy in its wake. An auctioneer briefly in possession of the ring dismisses the “folklore surrounding the belief the opal was cursed,” but some folklore should not be trifled with. Avery adeptly leaps from owner to owner, crossing oceans and eras. Much of the fun comes from seeing the ring’s value change given the situation. (“I certainly hope someone wants it,” complains one unimpressed character, who receives the ring as a donation to fund ambulances for the Great War. “But I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”) The novel doesn’t stick with any single person long enough for the reader to form a strong attachment, and the various episodes read more like vignettes than self-contained narratives. There is much here to enjoy, but those looking for a cohesive story may be disappointed.
A meandering tale of desire and human folly.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2024
ISBN: 9798350969948
Page Count: 184
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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