A familiar but often heartwarming modern version of a Christmas miracle story.
A snowstorm traps a group of strangers in a mall on the day before Christmas in Milana’s debut novel.
The story centers around a melancholy occasion, even though it’s Christmas Eve in Chicago, as the Maplefield Mall is slated to be shuttered permanently. This is particularly poignant for Betty Bryant, who’s been the mall’s manager for decades and is now sadly presiding over its final celebration of the Christmas season. At her side, as always, is the mall’s general counsel, Leo Sawyer, who’s been her main support for many years, and Leo thinks of her as “one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable.” Lately, they’ve been plagued by the crisp, businesslike, young Darci Timbers, who is overseeing Maplefield’s closing, “hand-picked to work here by the real estate tycoon who owned this and many other shopping centers.” That tycoon, Malcolm Wiggins, is flying into Chicago to close this one himself, accompanied by his overworked assistant, Harry, who’d much rather be at home with his wife, Emily, who’s expecting their first child. A large cast of other characters joins these lines converging on the mall as a snowstorm moves in, including mall worker Elmer; Pastor Max, leader of a congregation in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods; and 14-year-old Karina, one of the troubled young people under Max’s care. When the snowstorm accelerates from “white Christmas” to holiday nightmare, these disparate characters face a crisis that changes all their lives. It’s a fairly pat premise, but Milana imbues it all with energy, and detail overcomes its predictability. That said, the characters are somewhat unevenly drawn. Betty and Leo shine with a warmly realized sense of humanity; for example, early on, Betty thinks, “No matter what the weather—rain or shine—and no matter the circumstances—feast or famine, Leo brought a fairy-tale kind of joy to her day.” However, Malcolm remains one-dimensional, even in a traumatic situation. The character-by-character setup, necessary to make readers care about them, feels overlong, and because the cast is so big, several minor plot threads feel slight. Even so, the final act redeems these flaws.
A familiar but often heartwarming modern version of a Christmas miracle story.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73543-641-8
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Madness To Magic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 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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