Rather sloppy, but Thomas fans may embrace this latest effort.
British author Thomas (The Illusionists, 2014, etc.) brings back the Wix family, entertainers who own London’s Palmyra theater, and focuses on the daughter’s story in this historical romance set in the early 20th century and beyond.
Since surviving the sinking of a pleasure steamer during a family excursion, psychically gifted 13-year-old Nancy Wix occasionally sees images of a young victim. Worse, rescued passenger Lawrence Feather pops up at random times, intent on convincing Nancy to channel her powers and communicate with his beloved sister, a passenger who drowned on the cruise. Nancy’s repelled by him and uncomfortable that he recognizes her connection with the Uncanny (as she calls the supernatural world), something she’s never revealed to her parents. Her mother, Eliza, is frail, and her father, Devil, is always busy scheming to keep the Palmyra afloat. Her parents’ relationship is stormy, but the two remain devoted to one another; Nancy, though, often feels alienated from both. They focus their efforts on younger brother Arthur’s future by enrolling him in elite schools and encouraging him to mingle with the upper class. Nancy knows her parents have no such hopes for her eldest brother, Cornelius, or herself, but she’s determined to follow her own path. In her 20s, she becomes involved with Feather's godson, Lion, but abandons conventional expectations to be with the love of her life, wealthy businessman Gil Maitland. Nancy also finds herself slipping into the role of parent while her mother and father become mired in destructive behaviors. To help keep her family afloat, she seeks out Feather—who uses his own weak psychic abilities and knowledge of human gullibility to conduct séances for paying audiences—becomes his student and protégé, and then leaves him to establish her own show at the Palmyra. Thomas focuses more on plot development and characterization in her current offering than she did in the prequel, and she almost manages to pull off an absorbing historical romance. She creates a dynamic protagonist involved in an uncertain romance, and her other principal characters are equally well-rounded. But her heavily ornate style of writing, combined with long superfluous passages and terminology unfamiliar to many readers, detracts from the overall quality of the story.
Rather sloppy, but Thomas fans may embrace this latest effort.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4683-1174-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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