Comment

Comment by Holly Weiss on October 31, 2010 at 1:29pm

Russian Winter: A Novel
By Daphne Kalotay
Why is the pendant worn backwards…and which woman wears it?

The cover of Russian Winter beguiled me, but did not answer the many questions that hammered at my brain as Nina’s story unfolded. I paid diligent attention to the carefully spun-out clues in the novel and was spellbound until the end. Sometimes we savor a book—read a bit, then put it away until tomorrow so that it may be pondered. Not so with Russian Winter. I was swept away and contentedly disconnected from the rest of my life for the hours I spent within its pages.

I reveled in author Daphne Kalotay’s use of language. She juxtaposes present day Boston with post WW II Soviet Union where artists struggle with their private turmoil and fears behind the iron curtain. Her flashbacks are expertly cast in the present tense. So much of what is beautiful in this world—ballet, poetry, music, love, creative expression, hope—is intertwined with betrayal, fear, loss, poor health. Detailed descriptions of the jewelry to be auctioned are uniquely placed between chapter headings. Kalotay has a way of bringing simple images to life with phrases like “a squadron of hairpins.”

“Dancers must remember everything.” Retired ballerina Nina Rebskaya, who has defected to the United States and seeks to sell her jewel collection to benefit the Boston ballet, suffers such a fate. Nina, who visualized the optimum performance of the next step in her choreography as she felt the floor beneath her feet, becomes the retired benefactress, body rigid and wheelchair-bound, tracing the lines of the past in her memories.

The career of a ballerina is ephemeral but the value of a gemstone endures. Intrigue seduces. Art is transforming. Ponder all of this in the captivating novel, Russian Winter.

Reviewed by Holly Weiss, author of Crestmont
http://www.hollyweiss.com

Comment by Micki Peluso on August 29, 2010 at 7:12pm

Hi guys,

I need some help. I keep trying to post a review here which is set up exactly like the ones on other sites, but this one won't take the review. It says to post first whatever that means since I did post it first. It really was a good review lol so I hope I'm not being edited by a review post site .
Thanks in advance,

Micki.

Comment by Micki Peluso on August 19, 2010 at 8:36pm

Brian,

Nice going!! Getting a Kirkus review is huge--albeit expensive, but it's a review you will use again and again in marketing.

Micki Peluso

Comment by Brian L. Murphy on August 18, 2010 at 10:24pm

Review by Kirkus Discoveries, Nielsen Business Media, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
discoveries@kirkusreviews.

"Drugs, Death, and Auras: A Story of Love"

A callow young man takes a seemingly mundane office job and gets more than he bargained for
in this absorbing thriller.

There’s bound to be something fishy about a job opening when the interviewer starts out by
asking about your “belief structure.” But it’s economically stagnant 1976 and recent grad Tim Conolly isn’t getting many nibbles on his résumé, so he accepts the junior-management position with RDG, a California manufacturer of medical tests. Half the job, of course, is navigating office politics and personality clashes, a challenge that becomes considerably easier after Tim’s mysterious mentor—a member of a shadowy cabal known as the Committee—gives him a magic key that lets him see his coworkers’ hidden emotional states as colored auras. (Remember, the ’70s were the decade of the mood ring.) Once he gets used to the headaches,

Tim learns to read the auras of the people around him—green means contentment, blue means anger, yellow means suicidal self-loathing—and even to project his emotions into other minds. Those skills come in handy when two crises erupt. The first is the murder of Tim’s mother, which
he sets out to avenge when the perp gets off scot-free. The second is a plot hatched by a conspiracy within the Committee to use poisoned heroin to rid America of its drug addicts. The auras might sound a bit goofy, but Murphy deploys them in a restrained, deadpan style as a muted element of magical realism. They serve to highlight what is actually a subtle study of workplace group dynamics, and of the grief and rage that roil Tim’s family in the wake of tragedy. The author’s prose is taut but full of feeling and psychological nuance—it reveals his characters’ souls more vividly than their auras do.

A well-crafted, imaginative tale.
Murphy, Brian L.
DRUGS, DEATH, AND AURAS:
A Story of Love
ISBN: 978-1-4392-5202-4
Kirkus Discoveries, Nielsen Business Media, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
discoveries@kirkusreviews.

Comment by Micki Peluso on July 20, 2010 at 6:25pm

Saturday, April 17, 2010 The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell


(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April, 2010)


Lexie Sinclair’s mundane life during the early 1950s is about to take off like a rocket. Named Alexander by birth, called Sandra by her mother, she claims her new name given to her by Innes Kent, not more than minutes after meeting him. He is a charming British man, almost a decade older than Lexie’s eighteen years, and a character unto himself, as are all the players in this eccentric tale.


Love springs up between Innes and Lexie, as if from geysers and hot springs, as he introduces this bored country girl with big dreams to his world. It’s as if she’s come home at last. She drinks in the exotic nectar of artists and writers, an ethereal group that seems to drift above the reality of the masses. But the brightest flames are often snuffed out, as Lexie, acting as her own narrator in much of this unusual book, tells her readers. Writer O’Farrell thinks nothing of author intrusion, redundancies, odd metaphors, and adjectives—often switching tenses from one paragraph to the next. Yet she has moments where her writing is haunting, intriguing, almost an art form. Her story draws the reader into the complex lives of two different young women, fifty years between them, yet alike in so many aspects.


In a parallel story, Elina and Ted, living in present times, struggle to deal with the near fatal birth experience producing their son. The traumatic Caesarian delivery temporarily robs Elina, an artist, of her memory of both past and present. She is not yet famous, but not struggling either, and sees life through her hands and in her paintings—unlike Lexie, now a journalist, whose quick, observant mind conceives life from the branches of trees to the chaotic street life of the art district of London. Ted is a practical man, working in film production until his own memory heaves up images of his past—fast, distorted, and disconcerting as he struggles to make sense of his visions. The four might never meet but their lives will impact each other in a most unlikely scenario.


At the end of Part One of the book, a horrible incident occurs and in her omniscient way, O’Farrell drops it upon the reader as sudden thunder claps on an otherwise ordinary day. For Lexie, there will be no more of those, if in fact there ever were. Part Two picks up Lexie’s life without Innes and Elina’s struggle and worry over Ted. The plot begins to bubble and stir as the past insidiously creeps into the future.


Lexie, refusing to live with her off/on lover, Felix, finds herself pregnant and in “Lexie style,” has her baby alone, accepting only visits from the father of her child. Both women in the story experience difficult childbirth, yet are bound by intense love for their sons. But as Lexie foretold earlier in the story, she would not be around long, and Ted is soon without a mother by the age of three. As this odd mixture of stories and lives draws to a close, mysteries of the past are disclosed, taking the reader by surprise, and lending answers to Ted’s tortured soul.


O’Farrell’s tendency to avoid all rules of grammar and syntax seems to be deliberate on her part. While disconcerting at times—many times—her writing can read like poetry; as a result it’s hard to put this book down. Her descriptions of places, people, and events can be brilliant, full of insights into the human soul. Or, as Lexie says, “Everything she sees seems freighted with significance”—as is this book.


Reading The Hand That First Held Mine is like riding a roller coaster: never knowing what’s around the next bend, but anticipating a thrill; and when the ride is over, one wishes to buy a ticket for more of the same.


Reviewer Micki Peluso is a journalist for three major newspapers, a short story writer, and author of . . . And The Whippoorwill Sang, a humorous family memoir.

Comment by Micki Peluso on July 17, 2010 at 7:58pm

Hi, everyone,

I'm a reviewer for the New york Journal of Books, where I get to review best selling new releases before the release date. I also review for Readertoreader. Where can I put my reviews on this site?

Appreciate the help and look forward to reading and learning from your reviews.

micki Peluso

Comment by David Cooper on May 3, 2010 at 10:39am

My review of C.K. Williams' new book of poems "Wait"

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page