An original and thoughtful entry in the contemporary romance genre.
A visit to a resort turns into a life-changing experience for an entrepreneur and the woman he loves in this novel.
All Nakia Noble wants during her vacation is peace and quiet, but her sister, Kirby, thinks she should find a man and have fun. Nakia catches the eye of Caleb Jones, a successful entrepreneur and outdoorsman. Their connection is instant, and they spend a passionate evening together. Caleb wants to turn their mutual attraction into a romance. While Nakia is drawn to him, she is reluctant to pursue a relationship because he is white and she is African-American. She believes it is easier to marry someone who “sees the world the way you do.” Several weeks later, he visits her family’s resort and discovers their link is still intense. While exploring a cave, Nakia and Caleb fall asleep and wake up in a country called Acirema in an alternative universe. In Acirema, Nakia is part of a special police unit tasked with rounding up weeds, or the oppressed. Caleb is an integral part of the Resistance. As they try to find a way back to their reality, they develop an unshakeable bond, one that is tested as they are pursued by a dangerous enemy. This latest novel from Robinson (OCAAT, 2017, etc.) is an ambitious combination of romance and speculative fiction bolstered by dynamic characters, well-drawn settings, and a propulsive narrative. Nakia and Caleb are strong protagonists whose relationship anchors the story. The author establishes their physical connection in the opening chapters through playful, flirtatious dialogue and scenes that crackle with erotic tension. Nakia’s views on race and relationships inform her vision of her ideal partner, and her reluctance to pursue a romance with Caleb is sensitively handled. They are surrounded by a well-developed cast of supporting characters, including Nakia’s eccentric Uncle Wallace and Kirby. Robinson is particularly adept at creating vivid settings. The contrast between the tranquility of Nakia’s family’s resort and the grim, ravaged Acirema is striking, and the two lovers’ journey is gripping and suspenseful.
An original and thoughtful entry in the contemporary romance genre.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9964389-7-1
Page Count: 340
Publisher: ARTwo Publishers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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