A compelling, full-of-heart novel about the power of female friendship.
Two London women accidentally switch bags at the gym and end up walking in one another’s shoes—literally.
Sam Kemp is struggling—between her demanding jerk of a boss, her pushy parents, and her husband’s untreated depression, she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. When she accidentally grabs the wrong bag at the gym as she rushes out to a meeting, she’s initially dismayed to find the bag contains a towering, strappy pair of Christian Louboutin heels instead of her usual sensible footwear. But when she’s forced to wear the shoes into her meetings, she discovers something—they give her confidence and power she’s never had before. Emboldened, she doesn’t rush back to the gym to return them. That’s unfortunate for Nisha Cantor, whose gym bag Sam accidentally stole. Nisha just got cut off by her ultrarich, controlling husband—now ex-husband. He won’t return her calls, he shuts her out of their penthouse, and he closes her credit cards, essentially leaving her with nothing. Out of options and money, Nisha finds herself working as a cleaner at the building where she once lived, hoping to sneak into her husband’s penthouse and get some of her things. But Nisha is also desperate to get those shoes back, and she’ll stop at nothing to find them. Meanwhile, Sam is dealing with her own problems, mainly feeling alone as she attempts to keep her family afloat while her husband’s illness worsens. When Nisha and Sam finally meet, the two of them realize they might actually be able to work together to fix both their lives. Nisha and Sam both have satisfying arcs as characters who start out being difficult to like—Nisha because she’s a snob and Sam because she’s a pushover—but become better, stronger people because of their friendship. Moyes is also brilliant at creating fully formed, charmingly funny side characters, like Nisha’s co-worker Jasmine and Sam’s friend Andrea. Ultimately, the story is about the importance of women from all walks of life supporting and looking out for one another.
A compelling, full-of-heart novel about the power of female friendship.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781984879295
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
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
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
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