A strong start to a new Victorian romance series.
A practical lady is unexpectedly charmed by a louche lord.
Lady Diantha Courtenay spends her days following the rules and being practical—it’s the only way to balance out the impulsive and often irrational behavior of her parents, who since Halley’s Comet appeared in the sky more than 20 years ago, have pledged to do whatever they please. But she’s made an exception tonight, staying up late to attend a dear friend’s wedding, where she finds herself attracted to a man who looks like “the embodiment of a fallen angel in a painting”—and decides to kiss him even after realizing he’s the son of her father’s mortal enemy. For Lord Lucian Eldridge, second son of the Duke of Waxford, the encounter is not unusual; as the spare, he feels it’s his duty to enjoy life to the fullest, so a secret kiss with a beautiful woman is nothing new. But the next morning, as Diantha resolves to return to her practical self, Lucian learns that his older brother has had a hunting accident in Scotland, and while his overbearing father heads up there, Lucian will need to become more involved with the family’s affairs. This horrifies Lucian, though he’s intrigued to discover that those affairs include resolving a long-standing lawsuit between his family and Diantha’s, something the two will have to work on closely together. Due to their intense attraction, they find it hard to focus on the task at hand, and a steamy bout or two of “system-cleansing” at locations like the British Museum serve only to make them even more confused about who they are becoming, both on their own and together, and what the future might hold. Frampton is in fine form at the start of her new Heirs and Spares series, fleshing out the opposites-attract story with witty dialogue and complex characters. The instant chemistry between Lucian and Diantha catalyzes both to finally consider extracting themselves from their very different families, and accordingly the plot focuses on their individual development as much as their burgeoning relationship. Readers looking for a well-constructed, satisfying historical romance will be pleased.
A strong start to a new Victorian romance series.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063389205
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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