A well-paced, gritty, and illuminating look back with an intriguing cast of characters.
Sex, drugs, changing musical vibes, and a small carved ivory snakehead propel Greenhill’s novel about an eclectic collection of struggling musicians in California during the 1970s.
Guitarist Reed Rosen drives from Los Angeles to Arroyo, where he will meet up with his friend Beau Miller, a young songwriter and singer; they have a recording session scheduled at Sierra Sound Labs. But first, he must navigate through an anti-war/Black Panther protest and the resulting police action. When he stops at a traffic light, a young Black woman opens the door, gets in the car, and sticks what feels like a gun in his side. “Drive,” she tells him. After a few blocks, he looks down and sees that the ‘gun’ is in fact a granola bar. This is how Reed meets Angie Henderson, a music arranger who will become the most important woman in his life. She rides with him to Beau’s cottage in Arroyo, located on land owned by Beau’s record producer Sunshine (AKA Solomon “Sonny” Schine), who also happens to be a major dealer of premium marijuana. The next day, at the recording session, it is Angie who saves the day after 17 lackluster takes, exercising her arranger chops to coordinate the drums and back-up musicians with the “two-AND” beat she suggested the previous night, delivering what Sunshine hopes will be Beau’s breakthrough into the country music charts. Greenhill’s nostalgic visit to the mercurial 1970s music scene in California is replete with high- and low-cultural signifiers of the period, including the social upheavals of the anti-war, anti-racist, and feminist movements, the easy availability of pot and cocaine, and lots of sex in all varieties. (A subplot involving Angie is a take-off on the Patty Hearst/Symbionese Liberation Army saga, and the little ivory snake talisman that made its way from Japan to California in Sunshine’s pocket in the early 1960s presages the later arrival of Japanese corporate involvement in the American music industry.) Most compellingly, Greenhill brings readers into the recording studios, depicting with riveting specificity the miniscule musical adjustments that are involved in producing a final product.
A well-paced, gritty, and illuminating look back with an intriguing cast of characters.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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