by Penelope Lively ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996
A heavier touch than Booker-winner Lively's last novel (Cleopatra's Sister, 1993) is in evidence here, as a mother watches her daughter's marriage to a philanderer founder just as her own did—until summer's oppressive heat fashions a more decisive end. At World's End, her clutch of restored cottages in rural England, freelance editor Pauline has settled in for the warmer months with daughter Teresa, Teresa's writer husband Maurice, and the couple's toddler Luke. As Pauline edits a romantic fantasy complete with unicorns, Maurice, already marked as a rising star among the literati, struggles with an exposÇ about the myths concerning country life, work in which he is aided by his own editor, who visits from London on weekends with his girlfriend. Teresa is too absorbed with Luke and infatuated with Maurice to notice, but Pauline can't help but see her son-in-law's attention wander to the girlfriend—and is reminded unpleasantly of Teresa's father, an academic whose countless liaisons and callous indifference to Pauline's feelings ultimately drove them apart. Maurice begins to visit London frequently ``for research,'' and by the time Pauline chances to see him holding the other woman's hands at World's End when his wife is out of the room, even Teresa has begun to suspect. Having experienced the jealousy and welter of feelings associated with such a betrayal, Pauline wants to protect her daughter but can't speak of the matter because Teresa will not. Meanwhile, she grows increasingly hostile to Maurice, and matters come to a head when a crop-killing heat wave breaks into a colossal thunderstorm, knocking out the power and bringing Maurice to Pauline's cottage for a fateful encounter. While the denouement proves surprisingly clichÇd, emotional nuances are unerringly precise, creating a full-bodied, often elegant portrayal of a fragile family dynamic forever altered by adultery. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-017476-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2004
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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by Nicholas Sparks ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 2015
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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