An engaging novel about the loves that define our lives.
An adventurous researcher returns to her childhood home and must navigate relationships with her brother, her ex-fiance, and a potential new lover.
Maeve Donnelly has been interested in sharks ever since she was bitten by one as a 12-year-old and survived. Now an adult, Maeve is a marine biologist and more comfortable with sharks than she is with people. At the end of a research trip, Maeve is drawn to Nicholas, a fellow researcher, and invites him to meet her in Mozambique for her next expedition. Yet when she returns to her childhood home at her aunt’s hotel in Florida, where she and her brother moved after their parents died in a private plane accident, she finds unresolved family and romantic relationships waiting for her. Maeve learns that her less successful twin brother, Robin, has had a novel accepted for publication, and it's loosely based on a broken engagement in Maeve’s past. Further, Maeve’s ex-fiance, Daniel, is now the hotel's chef. Before Maeve can decide whether to move forward with Nicholas, she must address her lingering connection to Daniel, which is no easy task given that the two haven’t spoken since Daniel confessed an affair to her. To complicate matters, Daniel’s precocious 6-year-old daughter, Hazel (who was born of his affair), now lives with him after the untimely death of her mother. Hazel is taken with sea creatures and invites Maeve to be a member of The Shark Club with her. Maeve’s professional life is also challenged as an illegal finning operation has moved into the area and is targeting local sharks. Taylor’s debut novel paints a fascinating portrait of sharks and a woman who loves them, with the sweet, burgeoning relationship between Maeve and Hazel as its anchor. The romantic relationships never feel quite fully realized, however, as Nicholas’ presence is too fleeting to endear the reader to him, which makes Maeve’s dilemma of whether to be with him or Daniel seem more symbolic than anything. Considering that the novel is told in the first person, at times Maeve’s thoughts and motivations are also surprisingly hidden both from herself and the reader. There is an interesting cast of secondary characters, such as Maeve’s aunt and brother, and the scenes depicting Maeve’s intellectual and emotional ties to sharks are captivating, especially as the illegal finning operation becomes an urgent local issue that forces her into activism.
An engaging novel about the loves that define our lives.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2147-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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