A well-researched adventure that skillfully mixes warts-and-all history with cinematic action.
Social and legal impediments hamper the life of a mixed-race teen born out of wedlock to a baronet in this historical novel.
In 1774, Arthur Charteris owns a sugar plantation on the British colony of Grenada as well as 92 enslaved people. A reader of the philosopher John Locke, who wrote “Every man had a property in his own person,” Arthur doesn’t abuse those who toil for his fortune. When he purchases a 15-year-old girl named Weju, she proves herself a valuable healer. He frees her, and within a year, she runs the plantation at his side and is with child. Tragically, Weju dies soon after Alexander, or “Chart,” is born. Several years later, as Arthur inherits his father’s baronetcy, he and Chart return to Leicester, England. Chart has a happy countryside childhood at Knossington Hall, though his grandmother Lady Dorothea warns Arthur that the beloved mixed-race boy won’t legally inherit anything. When Chart is 13 years old, he meets his cousin Pemberton, who is two years older and has a slight hunch. Even before the boys attend Westminster together, Pemberton reveals lust and darkness in his heart. At school, Chart’s classmates torture him with words and deeds. He comes to believe his only escape from a society that loathes him lies with the military—and the warfare in India. From Ashby, author of the Seth Armitage historical thrillers, comes an adventure set in the twilight years of slavery in England. Chart's journey encapsulates an era in which empires fractured and intellectuals such as Thomas Paine exposed leaders like Thomas Jefferson, who, “despite proclaiming that all men are created equal,” believed “blacks are inferior to whites.” Alongside copious research and sharp prose that honors the character of the 18th century, the author displays a modern flair for drama and gore (“Chart saw a bamboo pole...with a human head stuck on the top”). Pemberton eventually succeeds in destroying Chart’s legal claims. The cousin’s villainy later overshadows Chart’s romance with Arabella Sherrard, a girl from a poor family who venerates his Caribbean lineage. Plenty of intense action awaits readers in the final third.
A well-researched adventure that skillfully mixes warts-and-all history with cinematic action.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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