A fun summer read about the secrets families keep from one another.
A woman spends the summer vacationing with her husband, her children, and her brother-in-law, the lead singer of an enormously famous band.
When Mona met Jack Springer, she had no idea that his older brother was Denny Springer, lead singer for one of the world’s greatest rock bands. In fact, she didn’t find out who Jack’s brother was until their wedding day, when Denny failed to show up. Mona and Jack have been married for years and have two sons by the time Denny finally comes home for Easter dinner. Mona, Jack, and their sons are planning to spend their summer at a rental house in Connecticut, and Mona invites Denny to join them. Jack is also a musician, although his albums are much less successful than those of Denny’s band. It might, she thinks, be an opportunity for the brothers to bond over their shared love of music. But when Denny shows up, his presence is more bothersome to Mona that she thought it would be. He brings bodyguards, a driver, and a sense of entitlement that she can’t stand. As their summer goes on, Mona starts to wonder how well she knows Jack and Denny in the first place. Baratz-Logsted’s (I Love You, Michael Collins, 2017, etc.) writing sparkles, and Mona’s voice feels pleasantly conversational. Readers will feel like they’re hearing a story from a best friend, although they might wish for slightly more drama. A twist near the end doesn’t carry the emotional heft that it should, since the stakes—in Mona’s relationship with Jack, Jack’s relationship with Denny, and Mona’s relationship with Denny—are never quite high enough.
A fun summer read about the secrets families keep from one another.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63576-042-2
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Diversion Books
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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