A mixed result in this first of a new series.
Gregory’s latest fiction (The Other Queen, 2008, etc.) moves from the Tudors to their predecessors, the Plantaganets, and their War of the Roses.
It is 1464 and Henry VI is King of England, but not for long. Mentally unstable (some say a holy fool), his House of Lancaster is fighting the House of York to maintain a puppet throne. A young Yorkist heir claims the crown through a series of battles and becomes Edward IV. Elizabeth Woodville, a Lancastrian widow and famous beauty, stops the King and his retinue on the road to ask that her lands and inheritance be restored to her. It is love at first sight (or maybe lust as the King is a notorious letch, or maybe witchcraft—Elizabeth and her mother dabble in the black arts), and soon she and Edward marry and she ascends the throne as the new Queen of England. On the advice of her mother and Edward, she gives titles and power to all of her family, a move that makes her allies and enemies in equal measure. Along the way there are betrayals by those seeking the throne for themselves, more conquests and more enemies made, with France always at their heels. In the midst of this Elizabeth and Edward have many children, including two boys who become part of the unsolved mystery of the Princes in the Tower. When Edward suddenly dies, his brother Richard III steals the rights of the young Prince of Wales and crowns himself King. As always Gregory fills out all the dark corners of history and creates a thrilling read, and again creates a portrait of female society that has more power (diamond-hard women who will see their sons and husbands rule at any cost) than is generally acknowledged. Yet the intimacy of Elizabeth Woodville’s story is too often overshadowed by the complexities of the times she lived in, and in Gregory’s attempt to get it all in, some depth of character is left out.
A mixed result in this first of a new series.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-6368-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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