If only things went so well in real life! Enjoy the wish fulfillment of ready cash and ideal outcomes.
A close-knit group of 60-something black women deals with loss, illness, addicted family members, and the never-ending challenges of diet and exercise.
In her 10th novel, McMillan (I Almost Forgot About You, 2016, etc.) joins long-career novelists such as Philip Roth and Anne Tyler as she sails her protagonists with her into older age. Southern California beauty supply mogul Loretha Curry is about to celebrate her 68th birthday with her doting, still-hot third husband, and she begins by watching the DVD of her 67th. Here we meet her gal pals: Sadie, the church lady who might be a lesbian; Korynthia, the gorgeous 6-foot-1-inch-tall exercise instructor; Lucky, married to a white architect and with a weight problem like Loretha’s; and Poochie, a cruise-loving widow rolling in dough, now living in Las Vegas to care for her ailing mother. Loretha has told Carl that she’s sick of parties, so the dear man surprises her with a weekend at a favorite Palm Springs resort, where less happy surprises await. Speaking of hot husbands and hotel rooms, the little blue pill plays a humorous role throughout the novel, which is sprinkled with comments like “And he knows how to take just the right amount of Viagra, not like Mr. Roto-Rooter.” After Loretha’s world takes a devastating hit in Chapter 1, all her problems become much more pressing. She’s completely alienated from her twin sister and her alcoholic daughter; her son lives in Japan, and she’s never met her grandkids; her 86-year-old mother is eager to leave the nursing home; many people in her life need money and plan to get it from her. With all this pressure, it's no wonder Loretha’s ignoring her diabetes diagnosis and putting on pounds like crazy, and the only exercise she gets is walking her dog, B.B. King.
If only things went so well in real life! Enjoy the wish fulfillment of ready cash and ideal outcomes.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2374-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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