A dramatic family saga that captures the widespread fallout of war.
The fates of two extended families are intertwined during World War II in Norsworthy’s stirring historical novel.
When the story opens in 1939, 10-year-old Londoner Colin Clarke is still adjusting to his new home in the country in Elsworth, where he’s been sent by his mother, Beryl, as war looms. Beryl, a nurse, has remained in London to treat the anticipated wounded. Colin’s new “family” for the duration includes Ivy Hughes, her son, Hugo, and twins Patsy and Margaret, whom Ivy took in so they wouldn’t be separated. But the war soon intrudes even on this bucolic scene. First, Colin’s father, Gordon, becomes a German prisoner of war in France. Next, Hugo’s dad, Wills, is listed as missing in action. Colin and Hugo meet American flier Jack Philip, who eventually develops into a surrogate father for them. Annalise, the German POW camp commandant’s younger wife, takes an interest in Gordon, both for his construction skills and his physical attributes, and eventually makes him a tempting offer (“If she wished him to notice her, he would. If she was laying a trap, he preferred to find out sooner instead of later”). Gordon exploits this opportunity to aid his fellow prisoners and the local Resistance cell. After Beryl receives notice that Gordon has died from typhus, she and Jack grow much closer, with Colin’s reluctant approval. But those involved will learn that not all is as it seems during this confusing, chaotic period of war and upheaval. In this debut work, based partly on her father’s experiences as a POW, Norsworthy masterfully captures the action on two fronts: home and battlefield. Her thorough research lends an immediacy to the narrative that makes the reader feel present for each scene. Her story smoothly navigates among the various characters and the war’s varying effects upon them. Initially, the novel appears to be about two boys’ introduction to war, but it’s really the story of one couple, Gordon and Beryl, and the difficult choices they face because of misinformation and doubt. Most of the characters get their happy endings, though not always the ones they—or the reader—expected.
A dramatic family saga that captures the widespread fallout of war.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2024
ISBN: 9781685133719
Page Count: 313
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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
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
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