A fast-paced, easily digestible historical epic.
Williamson presents a tale of early-20th-century German South West Africa (now Namibia), told from a white colonist’s point of view.
In 1903, a young German named Conrad Huber receives the position of commissioner’s aide at the German Colonial Office in South West Africa. There, he stays in Commissioner Leutwein’s home in Windhoek, where he meets Sybille, who works in the commissioner’s office and is the daughter of Samuel Maharero, leader of the local Herero people. Due to ongoing struggles between Leutwein and Maj. Dietrich Baumhauer, the leader of the local militia, Conrad and Sybille are sent to negotiate with Maharero. Conrad soon rushes back to Leutwein, leaving Sybille with plans to reunite in Windhoek later, and he soon finds himself in the midst of a rebellion that results in Leutwein’s resignation and Conrad’s promotion to the Colonial Office’s Chief Expert under Gen. Lothar von Trotha. A battle with the Herero then ensues; Conrad receives a debilitating leg injury and is saved by his cousin Georg, who’s stationed in Windhoek. Von Trotha employs aggressive, inhumane tactics: “The Hottentots are savage and cowardly dogs,” he says at one point, employing an offensive term for the local inhabitants. “Murderous, villainous cannibals that must be put down!” Meanwhile, Conrad uses his new authority to track down the missing Sybille. Overall, Williamson deftly weaves an engaging story of adventure while taking care not to minimize the horrors inflicted upon the region’s people by Western European colonists. Readers may take exception to the fact that the story is told entirely from Conrad’s viewpoint; the author, in an afterword, notes this: “I have attempted to use my own lens to turn the white knight trope upside down and show how utterly helpless, out of place and unwanted such a ‘hero’ is.” The story’s structure is easy to follow, and although the author employs a certain amount of creative license to sustain the plot (the real-life Maharero didn’t have a German wife and a daughter named Sybille, for instance), it’s still firmly anchored in historical fact, including the horrific Battle of Waterberg, in which thousands of Herero soldiers and their families were killed.
A fast-paced, easily digestible historical epic.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9798350930801
Page Count: 458
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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