A lean and very moving page-turner about a woman’s bond with a dog she saved.
A young woman rescues an abused dog and tries to build a new life in McClure’s debut novella.
Nina Locklear, a 22-year-old Native American from the Navajo Reservation near Tucumcari, New Mexico, feels utterly hopeless. She lives in an illicit compound as “something more like living furniture than a live-in girlfriend” to its boss, the violent drug dealer James Savin, who runs a horrifyingly brutal dog-fighting operation. Nina is forced to watch these savage death matches, and she feels an instant connection with a golden-brown shepherd mix that seems destined for death in the cage matches. She realizes that, like the beautiful and seemingly doomed dog, she is trapped. When she can endure Savin’s savagery no more, she collects the golden dog and makes a daring escape by stealing Savin’s money and one of his cars. She’s unaware that her escape has been carefully watched via drone by agents Lianna Cortez and Andrew Davis, who’ve been building a case against Savin for a long time. Suddenly Nina and her canine companion find themselves being pursued by both law enforcement agents and a vengeful Savin. They make their way from New Mexico to California, where by chance they encounter a friendly surfer named Charlie, described by McClure in glowing terms: “He stepped out onto the sand with his bronze skin glistening, surfboard under his arm, shaking his wet hair out, striding directly over to her.” From these sparse elements, McClure crafts a fast-paced story, aided a great deal by the wise decision to curtail its length; as a novel, all of this might feel overcooked, but as a novella, it works perfectly. And the standout narrative strengths of the story—Nina's raw courage and her steadily deepening attachment to her rescued dog—make for the book's most memorable elements.
A lean and very moving page-turner about a woman’s bond with a dog she saved.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63792-228-6
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Beyond Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 4, 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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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