Historically and culturally revelatory and poignantly emotional, but also intensely sexually explicit and disturbing.
In the late 19th century, the son of a recently deceased British banker discovers the dark erotic secrets of his father’s carefully concealed alternate life.
Robert Stapleton, son of Joseph Stapleton, the “1st Viscount Barrington,” is 19 years old when his father dies suddenly of rheumatic fever in December of 1877. At the formal reading of Joseph’s will, Robert learns that in addition to his father’s title and the family’s two homes (one in London and another in Surrey), he has inherited a third house, located on Carlton Hill in St. John’s Wood, London. The St. John’s Wood house is a surprise—Robert has never heard of its existence, though it’s evidently common knowledge among other family members. When he goes to London to examine the mysterious edifice, he’s confronted with an uncomfortable truth. The home contains a plethora of ancient Greek and Roman coins and pieces of pottery, all bearing images of male erotica, as well as several sketches of a young boy by an artist named Jean-Louis Fortin. One artifact is especially startling: “The object in the largest bag appeared to have been carved from an elephant tusk. The cylindrical shaft tapered slightly, but at one end was a large bulbous swelling, an almost completely smooth helmet-like protuberance…The piece was unmistakably phallic.” A conversation with the housekeeper reveals that Joseph entertained and offered shelter to various young male artists. Several days later, Robert visits an eminent archeologist at the British Museum and learns that the ivory object is identical to one found at the murder scene of an unscrupulous art dealer in Rome several decades earlier. The year of the murder coincides with the time Joseph spent touring the Continent studying art. Robert, who’s been wrestling with his own sexual attraction to men (an inclination he considers sinful), decides to travel through Europe to learn more about Joseph’s life during his time in Paris and Rome. Accompanying him is Joseph’s elderly and faithful valet, Walters, who speaks little but is adept at caring for Robert in style.
With Robert’s arrival in Paris, Bruegmann’s carefully scribed tale turns steamy and unsettling. The narrative is told in two parts, the first section narrated by Robert and the second by an older man, Fabrizio Croce, an art and antiquities dealer with whom Robert develops a relationship. The plotline takes a deep dive into a shadowy world of male homosexuality in 19th-century London, Paris, and Rome, a realm of sado-masochistic encounters between older, frequently married men and young boys who are paid or otherwise compensated for their participation. All of this is coated with the gloss of an interest in art obsessively focused on the male body. The novel is both a love story and an intriguing sociological and historical examination of the gay culture of the era, with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. A surprise revelation at the end of Part One adds an additional twist to the story; however, Bruegmann’s indulgence in vividly graphic and fervent descriptions of sexual rituals that involve bondage, whipping, and assorted practices of domination and submission will likely narrow his audience.
Historically and culturally revelatory and poignantly emotional, but also intensely sexually explicit and disturbing.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9798989559527
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Beautiful Dreamer Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 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
BOOK TO SCREEN
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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