She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. 12-14)Īdventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.Įlisa-Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle-has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers-driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend-if not, unfortunately, for the children-in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer.

Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.īelly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Horatio’s son Sandy and Bentley set out to nail the evil duo, and to revive their loved ones the plot thickens when Sandy meets Sunny, a chatty nurse and love-interest, and they interact with his neighbors-the “inmates” of Walnut Manor, a home for the “distressed.” A financial subplot and a muddle of characters, defined by their eccentricities, clog the pacing of this throwback, but when the various subplots converge and the happy endings commence, the wrap-up is resounding.

Instead, Horatio, wife Mousey, the butler Bentley’s wife, Flossie, and a pet chicken end up in comas. Wealthy Horatio Alger Huntington-Ackerman’s two money-hungry brothers poison his birthday cake, with the intention of wiping out his entire family so they can inherit the riches. Resembling a Frank Capra or Preston Sturges movie in plot and tone, this fabulistic story from Ferris has an unconventional style and offbeat sense of humor that will delight readers or exhaust them, depending on their tolerance for screwball comedies.

Love among the walnuts by jean ferris