An evocative reimagining of the Romeo and Juliet story set amid the catastrophic collapse of a religious cult.
Young lovers struggle to overcome the powerful forces working to separate them.
Inspired by the events surrounding the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, Johnston’s second novel is a fast-moving and emotionally sophisticated account of the dangers of religious extremism and the tender story of two teenagers caught up in the tragedy that ensues when sectarianism collides with the larger world. Not long after 14-year-old Jaye Carroll and her mother move in early 1993 from California to the millenarian community near Waco controlled by Perry Cullen—known to his followers as “the Lamb”—she meets her contemporary, Roy Moreland, son of the second-generation county sheriff, at a gun show. Jaye is smart, self-aware, and under no illusions about Cullen’s true motivations, while Roy is mainly smitten to discover his first true love. In the early days, relations between Cullen and the surrounding community are peaceful, if coolly distant, but as suspicions grow that he’s accumulating a massive arsenal while sexually abusing young women under the guise of faith, the apocalyptic clash for which the Lamb has been preparing his followers gradually becomes inevitable. The brief chapters that alternate between Jaye’s and Roy’s points of view heighten this rising tension. Interspersed with their narrative are excerpts from a podcast three decades later that features interviews with surviving cult members, law enforcement officials, and others familiar with the tragedy at the ranch. Johnston adeptly shifts between mundane moments and episodes of vivid drama, culminating in the assault on Cullen’s compound that rapidly turns nightmarish for both sides. Even as the bullets fly, a protracted standoff ensues, and the novel moves toward its devastating climax, he keeps his deeply sympathetic protagonists clearly in focus. He also gracefully summons images of the rugged Texas countryside that provides the setting for a novel that beautifully evokes “the hubris, the naivete, the irrationality of love.”
An evocative reimagining of the Romeo and Juliet story set amid the catastrophic collapse of a religious cult.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780399590122
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though Hilderbrand threatens to kill all our darlings with this last laugh, her acknowledgments say it’s just “for now.”
A stranger comes to town, and a beloved storyteller plays this creative-writing standby for all it’s worth.
Hilderbrand fans, a vast and devoted legion, will remember Blond Sharon, the notorious island gossip. In what is purportedly the last of the Nantucket novels, Blond Sharon decides to pursue her lifelong dream of fiction writing. In the collective opinion of the island—aka the “cobblestone telegraph”—she’s qualified. “Well, we think, she’s certainly demonstrated her keen interest in other people’s stories, the seedier and more salacious, the better.” Blond Sharon’s first assignment in her online creative writing class is to create a two-person character study, and Hilderbrand has her write up the two who arrive on the ferry in an opening scene of the book, using the same descriptors Hilderbrand has. Amusingly, the class is totally unimpressed. “‘I found it predictable,’ Willow said. ‘Like maybe Sharon used ChatGPT with the prompt “Write a character study about two women getting off the ferry, one prep and one punk.”’” Blond Sharon abandons these characters, but Hilderbrand thankfully does not. They are Kacy Kapenash, daughter of retiring police chief Ed Kapenash (the other swan song referred to by the title), and her new friend Coco Coyle, who has given up her bartending job in the Virgin Islands to become a “personal concierge” for the other strangers-who-have-come-to-town. These are the Richardsons, Bull and Leslee, a wild and wealthy couple who have purchased a $22 million beachfront property and plan to take Nantucket by storm. As the book opens, their house has burned down during an end-of-summer party on their yacht, and Coco is missing, feared both responsible for the fire and dead. Though it’s the last weekend of his tenure, Chief Ed refuses to let the incoming chief, Zara Washington, take this one over. The investigation goes forward in parallel with a review of the summer’s intrigues, love affairs, and festivities. Whatever else you can say about Leslee Richardson, she knows how to throw a party, and Hilderbrand is just the writer to design her invitations, menus, themes, playlists, and outfits. And that hot tub!
Though Hilderbrand threatens to kill all our darlings with this last laugh, her acknowledgments say it’s just “for now.”Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9780316258876
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
