Intriguing and enjoyable, with an engaging female protagonist.
Harold’s historical novel follows an American-expat Civil War widow living in Paris during its heady, La Belle Epoque days.
Anna Kneeland Haggerty Shaw came to Paris with her family close to 20 years ago. Now, in May of 1892, at 56 years of age, she finds herself for the first time totally on her own, no longer responsible for being the dutiful daughter or attentive aunt. It has been almost 30 years since Anna was widowed after barely three months of marriage—her husband Robert Gould Shaw died a hero, shot while commanding the 54th Massachusetts infantry, the Union’s first Black Negro regiment. At the conclusion of a Debussy piano recital, Annie hears a voice calling out her name. It is that of Julia Shaw Greene, Robert’s aunt, who Annie has not seen in many years, even though Julia is also an American expat living in Paris. It is a fortuitous meeting that leads to a close friendship. Julia introduces Annie to Henrietta Reubell’s salon, where wealthy intellectuals and art aficionados mingle joyfully and a bit mischievously with the struggling artists in search of patronage (“she attracts a rather fascinating circle”). Immersed in the buoyant, irreverent crowd, Annie sees the glimmer of a new path she can follow, one which may allow her to express her own artistic talents and participate in the freedoms that Paris has to offer. In Harold’s tender, frothy, and witty novel, populated by an eclectic group of Bohemian artists, Paris itself occupies a prominent role. When Annie learns that her dreaded former mother-in-law intends to visit and (gasp) perhaps move in next door, the humor is kicked up a few notches as Annie and her friends devise ways to shock the old lady into returning to America. Through acerbic social commentary and biting dialogue, the author takes readers on entertaining tours of artists’ studios and one or two dens of iniquity. Elaborate descriptions of the fashions, foods, and lifestyles that made Paris the center of the arts and social rebelliousness of the era are peppered throughout, along with thought-provoking pre– and post–Civil War historical tidbits.
Intriguing and enjoyable, with an engaging female protagonist.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781578691944
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Rootstock Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.
Two people with bad luck in relationships find each other through a popular Reddit thread.
Emma Grant and her best friend, Maddy, are travel nurses, working at hospitals for three-month stints while they see the country. Just a few weeks before they’re set to move to Hawaii, Emma reads a popular “Am I the Asshole” Reddit thread from a Minnesota man who thinks he’s cursed—women he dates find their soulmates after breaking up with him, and the latest one found true love with his best friend! Emma has had a similar experience, which inspires her to DM the man and commiserate. She’s delighted by her witty, lively interactions with software engineer Justin Dahl, and is intrigued when he suggests that if they date each other, maybe they’ll each find their soulmate afterward. Emma upends the Hawaii plan and convinces Maddy to move to Minneapolis for the summer so she can meet Justin in person. The overly complex setup brings Emma and Justin together and the two hit it off, with Justin immediately falling head over heels for Emma. Jimenez then pivots to creating romantic roadblocks and melodramatic subplots centering on each character’s family of origin. Justin’s mother is about to serve six years in prison for embezzlement, which means Justin must move back home to care for his three much younger siblings. Emma was traumatized by her own mother for much of her childhood, left to fend for herself and eventually abandoned in the foster system. When her mother shows up in Minnesota, Emma must face her traumatic childhood and admit that she has prioritized her mother’s well-being over her own. There is little time devoted to Emma’s painful efforts to heal herself enough to accept Justin’s love, which leaves the novel feeling unsatisfying.
A wallowing, emotionally wrenching family drama that leaves little time for romance.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781538704431
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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