An engaging and timely family tale.
A novel offers a domestic drama that focuses on social issues plaguing a community.
Reagan Ramsey is a widowed mother of two who has a lot on her plate. Her son, Matthew, is lonely as he adjusts to life without his father, and her daughter, Lizzie, has Down syndrome and autism. One evening, following a rare night out for drinks at an Irish pub named Molly Malone’s, Reagan is standing in a parking lot and witnesses a drive-by shooting (“A deafening pop, pop, pop sounded, and she turned toward the noise”). While Reagan gets swept up in a police investigation, she struggles with a heady combination of fear, anxiety, and grief. Meanwhile, Jake Dekker is equally stressed. He loves his wife, Janet, but his stepson, Alex, is proving to be a problem in their marriage. Alex, after getting injured in a car accident, goes on a joyride with his friends shortly after. His pal who is driving hits a jogger with his car. The hit-and-run incident and the subsequent fear of getting caught hang over Alex like a dark cloud. Jake, who met Reagan at Molly Malone’s the night of the shooting, eventually decides to take Matthew under his wing, shouldering some of her burden while developing a positive relationship with her son. Veraar’s novel aims to shed light on how specific societal ills (namely, drugs and violence) impact families. Throughout her tale, readers see how these problems bleed into families until many members of a community are connected through trauma. The author deftly shows how such issues are compounded by the stressors of everyday life. In addition, Veraar excels at character development. Reagan, for example, is already beleaguered when she witnesses the shooting. Then her fear and paranoia escalate when she is visited by a creepy former student and Lizzie disappears. Later, Reagan begins therapy and helps out with the shooting investigation. The story’s subject matter is similarly intriguing; it is topical and relatable, particularly regarding the drug epidemic outlined in the tale. But the prose sometimes feels rudimentary and the dialogue a bit trite—Reagan at one point exclaims “Booyah!” in celebration. Still, Veraar’s story is engrossing and accessible.
An engaging and timely family tale.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2023
ISBN: 9798986734309
Page Count: 324
Publisher: GG Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2022
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
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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