Book list Poverty is a great leveler of society’s uneven factions and nowhere was this more evident than in rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. Careful and responsible, Birdie must find the funds to support her widowed mother and feeble grandmother. She is sent to Oxford where her sister, Frances, has married into old money. Once there, however, Birdie finds her pedigreed in-laws no better off now that Frances’ husband has absconded with the family fortune. Through Frances’ volunteer position with the local orphanage, Birdie meets 11-year-old Meg, one of the so-called “big girls” whose chances of adoption shrink with every birthday. Meg is convinced her mother, Charlie, would never have abandoned her to such a hopeless fate and clings to the fantasy that she’ll return for her. And return she does, thanks to Birdie’s kindness, Charlie’s ingenuity, and their unconventional partnership as proprietors of a brothel. As she did in The Help (2009), Stockett again satirizes the hypocrisy underpinning much of the early-twentieth-century South in a saga populated with memorable characters who rely on stock-in-trade pluck and sass to right all wrongs.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The enormous success of The Help as a novel and as the source for the Academy Award–winning film has left readers longing for Stockett's second novel.

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Library Journal Stockett's second novel (following her blockbuster debut, 2009's The Help) is set in the American South during the Great Depression. The story alternates between protagonists Birdie Calhoun, who arrives in Oxford, MS, to ask her sister Frances for money to avoid foreclosure, and 11-year-old orphan Meg LeFleur, who is eager to be reunited with her mother. As the plot progresses, Birdie dates a complicated man, additional characters create a brothel to generate income, and a Gatsby-esque couple, who initially adopt Meg, face a crisis. While there is much happening in this novel, the strongest moments involve the bitterness of an affair surrounding Meg's parentage and Birdie learning that her sister's husband has a secret that affects his reputation. The women in this novel are distinct and memorable; however, the pacing is uneven. As the characters reckon with their situations, the plot gains momentum, only to lag again once the details of other storylines intervene. VERDICT Although there will be high demand for Stockett's return to fiction, fans hoping for a novel as dynamic as The Help might be disappointed.—Tina Panik

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women. This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation inThe Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries. Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Stockett’s vibrant follow-up to her bestselling 2009 novel, The Help, traces the intersecting lives of an exasperated older sister, a precocious orphan, and an enterprising woman in 1933 Mississippi. Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur endures a miserable existence at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum for Girls in Oxford. Singled out by the cruel director, Meg is forced to toil in the institution’s offices rather than attend school. Too old to be adopted, she counts down the days until her 12th birthday, when she’ll be sent to work in a Biloxi cannery—though she still clings to hope that the mother who abandoned her might return. Meanwhile, Birdie Calhoun, 24, is forced into action when back taxes threaten the rural home she shares with her mother and grandmother in the Delta. She travels to Oxford to ask her younger sister, Frances, for help, only to discover that Frances’s supposedly charmed life is far less so than it seems. There, Birdie crosses paths with Meg and Charlie, a down-on-her-luck woman with a wild idea for making a fortune and reclaiming control of her life. The pace slackens at times, but Stockett holds the reader’s attention with her colorful characters. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, this offers a memorable view into the impossible choices faced by women in the Great Depression. Agent: Kim Schefler, Levine Plotkin. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms

Publishers Weekly : With this book, Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner, escaping the narrow genre of suspense thrillers to take credit for a historical novel of gripping readability, authentic atmosphere and detail and memorable characterization. Set in 12th-century England, the narrative concerns the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The ambitions of three men merge, conflict and collide through four decades during which social and political upheaval and the internal politics of the church affect the progress of the cathedral and the fortunes of the protagonists. The insightful portrayals of an idealistic master builder, a pious, dogmatic but compassionate prior and an unscrupulous, ruthless bishop are balanced by those of a trio of independent, resourceful women (one of them quite loathesome) who can stand on their own as memorable characters in any genre. Beginning with a mystery that casts its shadow on ensuing events, the narrative is a seesaw of tension in which circumstances change with shocking but true-to-life unpredictability. Follett's impeccable pacing builds suspense in a balanced narrative that offers action, intrigue, violence and passion as well as the step-by-step description of an edifice rising in slow stages, its progress tied to the vicissitudes of fortune and the permutations of evolving architectural style. Follett's depiction of the precarious balance of power between monarchy and religion in the Middle Ages, and of the effects of social upheavals and the forces of nature (storms, famines) on political events; his ability to convey the fine points of architecture so that the cathedral becomes clearly visualized in the reader's mind; and above all, his portrayals of the enduring human emotions of ambition, greed, bravery, dedication, revenge and love, result in a highly engrossing narrative. Manipulating a complex plot in which the characters interact against a broad canvas of medieval life, Follett has written a novel that entertains, instructs and satisfies on a grand scale. 400,000 first printing; $400,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild main dual selection; author tour.

Copyright 1989 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms