Customer Reviews:
Can't keep a good baba down!.......2002-11-04
I must admit, I was initially drawn to this book because I myself derive from 100% Ukrainian lineage. As such, Zabytko's subject matter interested me. I thumbed through the book and thought "Hey, I've gotta read this."
The story centers around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 26th, 1986. The fallout from this tragedy is said to have been the equivalent of eight Hiroshimas! Yet, as though the tragedy in itself were not bad enough, the government at that time chose to suppress information to the residents of villages surrounding Chernobyl, and to the nation at large. Folks were kept in the dark concerning the actual extent (and far-reaching effects) of the radioactive contamination. As a result, much PREVENTABLE damage was done to people at the time, and even to the children that would be born to those who survived.
The Unwashed Sky focuses on the situation facing the widow Marusia Petrenko, her son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. By the time they flee their village of Starylis, it is too late. Their lives will never be the same.
Marusia decides to return to Starylis. She is not even aware that it has been declared a "forbidden zone"... all that she knows is that this is her village, the only home she's ever known, and since everything dear has been torn from her, this feeling of "home" may be the only thing she can yet embrace as her own.
She returns, and finds that her only companion is an old mangy cat. She keeps a perpetual fire, hoping that the smoke from her chimney will tell others of her presence. And slowly, some of her old friends do begin to trickle back. One by one, these old women (and one man), drawn by the same sense of a need to belong to their beginnings, return to rebuild their lives.
These tenacious Starylis "babysi" band together and draft a letter of demands that causes the Chernobyl officials to cede to their requests, and admit to certain wrongdoings, however late in the day! (Even then, they grant the women's wishes only because of how good this will look in the newspapers).
Zabytko paints a sensitive, touching picture of this time of loneliness and desolation, of undeserved and unwarranted hardship... a time when even the dirt rejected seed and the water tasted of metal.
I loved the authentic Ukrainian vernacular running through the book... I could hear my own grandmother clearly.
A wonderful testimony of the enduring power of the human spirit and its will to survive... a point made all the more sobering when one considers the non-fictional source of the author's inspiration.
In an interview with Rebecca Brown, Irene Zabytko said: "I hope that anyone who reads it comes away with the feeling that despite the cultural exoticisms, we're still part of one planet, and the endurance of the human spirit persists in all."
I think she succeeds in this.
terrible disaster-easy to read.......2001-05-10
Irene Zabytko in this book presented the consequences of the worst civilian nuclear disaster in the world in a "humanely-digestible" way.The reader is initially reluctant to start reading this book, but later on , the author makes it more plausible and presents the deeply human feelings of the victims. Excellent work, Ms Zabytko!!
A small and brave masterpiece.......2001-03-10
A short book, that can be read in one day, The Sky Unwashed is a highly important book in two respects. Foremost, this is one of the first full pictures we got about what really happened to the residents in the Chernobyl region and Kiev in April, 1986, albeit in fiction, but borne out now in articles and TV documentaries. Secondly, the lyrical beauty and masterful storytelling should elevate this novel to the stature of high literature. It is almost a year since this book came out and I read it, but it still haunts me. There are several themes interwoven and coalescing in the overriding struggle for life versus death's inevitability, the largeness of the nuclear accident, its cataclysmic proportions versus the helplessness of mankind or of the individual, of course another metaphor for the big Soviet Union and the communist ideal versus the individual. Although ironically the political and scientific disasters are of mankind's creation.
The novel plays out in snapshots: We see people working at the factory before the nuclear accident because it looks like a better life or the best alternative; the aftermath of the accident, the government putting people on buses in a hurry, telling them they can go home in a few days, but to leave everything behind; a skin rash or a burn or a breathing problem, just that, a denial of radiation sickness; Marusia and her friends planting a garden.
What can a person do when faced with a moral dilemma over which they seem to have no control and from which there is no escape, where it doesn't matter whether you are a hero or a coward, because you will die anyway? The novel asks this in several ways and on several levels, and the answers are as different as the personalities involved.
The grandmother Marusia, her daughter-in-law Zosia, and two grandchildren crowd the hospital in Kiev, where her son, Zosia's husband, lays dying, people crammed into hallways for weeks fight over blankets and food and toys, the train station is stampeded. Zosia escapes the hospital for awhile to watch a parade, to look at clean streets and flowers, and to try pretend that it's all a bad dream, even while plotting to get her children out of Kiev. Marusia takes a different route. She and other elderly women friends go back to their village and live life on their own terms with the time they have left. This is where the novel really takes its philosophical wing and its song. It is the heart and soul of the book.
As the sky becomes dirty and unnaturally clouded over Chernobyl, a society's vision gradually becomes clear and unclouded. One makes the inevitable connection to the collapse of the Soviet Union a few years later. We will never really know for sure, but the issue of handling nuclear energy safely is one that is relevant to everyone on the planet.
Nuclear family: Struggling to survive Chernobyl.......2001-01-29
The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster scared the world witless. We all worried what might happen to us. But what became of those who lived there? It would be a mistake to read Irene Zabytko's The Sky Unwashed as a documentary novel, because, despite its commonplace beginning, it tells its story with characters who come to matter to us for their own sakes, not for what they can tell us about Chernobyl. Even so, Zabytko, a Ukrainian-American born in Chicago, writes from experience as well as imagination, for she has relatives and friends in Chernobyl, has spent time with them there and has taken their stories into herself.
The novel opens with a too-journalistic narrative of a Ukrainian family's dispirited life, pre-disaster, in a village where people seem to be going through the motions of life in a dying culture. Weddings are not celebrated festively so much as mockingly, less cheer than jeer. For young people, working at the nearby Chernobyl plant offers a chance to escape from ancestral poverty. Older ones, even in the gentler Gorbachev times, take a different view. They've lived through Stalin's engineered Ukraine famine; war; oppression. "The old women in babushkas who kept the old ways alive with their icons and litanies ... knew that the hard times never end," the prologue says.
The Petrenko family represents both attitudes. Old Marusia lives with her weak, dull son, whose wife, Zosia, nurses a vital spark that leads her into unhappy affairs in search of vibrant life. We don't like Zosia much at first. Irritable, nasty, she appears selfish despite having two young children. But after Chernobyl blows, her overbearing ill-temper and sharp tongue come in handy when the radiation-poisoned family encounters sneering incompetence at a Kiev hospital. Zosia bribes and browbeats her way to medical treatment for her husband; of course, we fear for those who lack such survival skills.
Yet it's the aged Marusia, with her traditional, lumbering ways, who carries the novel into our hearts. She goes along with the evacuation because there's no choice. When in the ensuing chaos she finds herself alone, though, she realizes that home is the only place to go. Arriving there after a hard journey, "She sank to her knees on the ground, and she made the sign of the cross. She uttered a prayer of thanks to be back on the land where her mother and grandmother had lived."
How Marusia survives in a deserted, radioactive village where the water tastes "like coins" is harrowing and fascinating. It's the center of the novel, much as the primacy of home and religious faith is Marusia's center. Eyes itching and red, body aching strangely, she goes to her church to ring its deafening bells every day. She tills her garden, aids a dying cat. Loneliness tries to crush her spirit. A few other residents return, bringing relief from isolation but also moral dilemmas and the pain of an old wrong that Marusia is now expected to forgive. She leads some villagers to an effective (but not very convincing) showdown with Soviet officials over basic demands. (It should be noted that this is a strong-women novel -- the men all tend to be weak, stupid or dead. Is that necessary to show that women are strong?)
The author resists any temptation to lard her story with lectures on the evils of nuclear power. A lesser writer would have introduced a character whose job was to pontificate instructively on radiation dangers and communist inefficiency (a lethal combination, for sure). Instead, Zabytko concentrates on showing what happens to her characters and how they respond, in their human particularity, to the terrors they face. Incidents affect them, and move us, without any sense of piling-on or wallowing in pathos. There are even mica-glints of humor.
Mainly we're left with astonished pride at human endurance, coupled with anguish and anger at what the novel shows so unflinchingly without preaching: that by accepting dangerous technologies, we risk irreversibly poisoning not only our bodies but also our very ground of being -- land, home, family.
The Sky Unwashed is tale of epic danger!.......2001-01-08
It's just an ordinary day in the village of Starylis on the outskirts of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine, where widow Marusia Petrenko awakens in her tiny house to hear her son Yurko & his wife Zosia arguing. Soon she rises to take care of her grandchildren, her garden & her prize milk cow in the shed.
Yurko labors long hours at the nuclear plant & when he does not come home for days; when the priest does not turn up for services; when the storks do not return & the air takes on a bitter metallic taste, hard to breath, hard to see - it all happens so quickly.
A profoundly moving story about forces beyond control; of having to leave all you have ever known; of being taken to strange places & surviving under the careless wing of a remote government; of witnessing death by strange diseases & an anonymity that shrivels the soul.
Until the day Marusia decides to walk home to her beloved village. Here a new story begins in the deserted farmland & houses. When other intrepid babysi wander back, life takes on a semblance of normalcy until these gentle souls begin to die.
A memorable first effort, rich in humanity & so very lyrical! Do check out my site for my full review & eInterview with this author
Book Description
The men next door never looked so good!
Who are these local heroes who are proving irresistible to these just-passing-through women?
He's a sexy sheriff who's avoided commitment all his life -- until he finds himself captivated by a single mother with a tragic secret, in The Best Bride.
He's a former bad-boy-turned-deputy who meets his old high school crush -- and her three kids! -- in Father in Training.
He's an undercover agent posing as a captivating drifter -- not to mention the "husband" of his biggest, most beautiful nemesis -- in Husband by the Hour.
HOMETOWN HEARTBREAKERS:
They're homegrown and ready to steal your heart . . .
Customer Reviews:
Great stories about a great family!.......2003-06-21
This book has 3 great romances is it.
The first book is about Travis Haynes, the sherriff of Glenwood. He helps a single mom in distress and despite his past, falls in love with her and her daughter.
The second book is about Kyle Haynes, deputy of Glenwood. He is the youngest Haynes brother and when his high school crush (with her 3 kids) buys the house near him he sees his second chance.
The third book is about the long-lost half sister of the Haynes clan. She goes to Glenwood with a hired husband, thinking that her mother is dying. When she gets there she is surprised that the entire Haynes clan is there to welcome her and her mother is far from ill. She starts to fall for the hired husband who she thinks is a criminal but is really an undercover cop.
The things I liked about these books were that every character has some issues and they all fight to overcome them. Despite their troubled childhood they come together as a family and their love for each other shines through. I know that there are other books in the series and I think they belong in between these books. I'm not sure of the order they go in but I think there are probably one or two in between the second and third books in this 3 in 1 Hometown Heartbreakers.
Customer Reviews:
GOOD HUSBAND IS FABU!!!.......2003-03-02
Susan Mallery's Good Husband Material is a quick, fun read that will quench your romantic thirst. The story is about Gage and Kari two star crossed lovers whom were engaged to be married eight years prior before Kari decided she needed to leave Possum Landing, Texas (yes thats the towns name) to persue a modeling career in New York City. Well Kari finds herself back in Landing to fix up and sell her grandmothers home. Little does she know that Gage her once big time love is the sheriff in Possum Landing and he's wanting to get reacquainted with her. Yet even though Kari wants to stay only for the summer to take care of the home, she cant stop the physical attraction she has for Gage.
What I love most about the two main characters were that they had fresh and witty humor and even after eight years of being apart they were so intuned with one another. Mallery weaves an interesting storyline concerning Gage's mother and his past which makes for emotional dialogue that proves that even the perfect picture family has there troubles. But what stood out the most is the sizzling love scenes. They were erotic, sensual,and emotional. You really wanted these two to consummate there relationship the moment they hook up. There are also funny secondary characters like Ida Mae and a small town bad girl named Daisy. Mallery has done an excellent job of telling Gage and Kari's story with depth, humor and definite romance. Its the kinda book you can read in one day..(I SURE DID)..hopefully they'll will be a story about Gage's brother Quinn which I will pick up the minute I see it on the shelves. You wont regret picking this fun read..you wont want to put it down.
Customer Reviews:
Single Dad.......2002-10-30
Back Cover description: Rugged Craig Haynes came from a long line of lady-killers. Lately, though, the single dad was targeting only Jill Bradford, his sons' new nanny. Two parts sweetness, one part sin, the pint-size redhead proved a wizard with his three rambunctious boys. So what made this miracle-worker insist she was strictly hired help? Could a houseful of Haynes males ambush her wary heart...and make her a mother and wife?
Interesting that the plot involves both hero and heroine with past issues that get in the way of love. The story moves along and the relationship between the boys and Jill developes at an even pace. In the real world, they'd all be in therapy for a few years. This is the first book I've read in this series and I think I started with the last in the group. I'm looking for the others, hope I find them.
Great read, it's worth your time!.......2001-03-07
This book is one in a series of the Haynes brothers. Four handsome men, five if you include Austin,an honorary sibling, trying to find "that special woman". Craig Haynes hires Jill Bradford as the temporary nanny to his three boys. Of course, from their first meeting sparks fly but and the attraction sizzles. You are part of the journey of "these four men living all together, but who are all alone" welcome Jill into thier home and hearts. You see the pain of thier accepting the death of their mother and mourn her passing even though she left them to chase her own dreams. The Haynes "myth" is a sweet goal that you hope they all will achieve. The relationship between Jill and Craig is believable and fun to be a part of. Their coming together is hot, and a roll-a-coaster of a ride (no pun intended). Even though it is part of a series it can stand alone as a complete book. I think this is the best one in the series. Enjoy!
Customer Reviews:
Completely smitten with Completely Smitten.......2003-05-24
Haley Foster has run away from home in order to give living on the wildside a chance. She meets up with US Marshal Kevin Harmon and the word 'wild' takes on new meaning. She takes this reformed bad-boy on a roadtrip that ends up with her falling completely under his spell. She's smitten. In over her head. But she's discovered reformed bad-boys don't like to stray from the straight-and-narrow. Can she convince him that sometimes being bad can be oh-so good? Maybe...if she's lucky!
Susan Mallery's 50th book is a true treat!
Customer Reviews:
Wake up, lady and pay attention!.......2002-11-17
Back Cover description: With his sexy Stetson and X-rated grin, was Sheriff Travis Haynes Glenwood's leading lady-killer or Elizabeth Abbott and her daughter's knight in shining armor? Finally pulling her life back together, Elizabeth couldn't afford more heartbreak. Still, Travis was awfully tempting...With every fragment of her betrayed heart, Elizabeth longed to trust the legendary lawman--enough to become his bride and give her child a daddy. But would her shattering past forever hold her hostage...even from the love that could make her whole?
I gave this 3 stars because I liked Travis, and the way the story started. However, about half-way through the book, I became annoyed. Sorry to give part of the plot away, but Elizabeth was married (?) to a bigamist. She met the guy while in college. Her move to Glenwood is so she can start over where no one knows her. Now she's attracted to Travis, who has the Haynes boys' reputation of love 'em and leave 'em. The difference here is that everyone knows the guy, he's not married and just about everyone but Elizabeth can see he's serious about her. The last quarter of the book was just so much emoting about--how can I trust ever again--that I just read the end to finish it. This is part of the Haynes brothers series, so if you've read any of the others, you'll probably read this too.
Customer Reviews:
Very dated book.......2005-12-20
I thought this was originally written in the 40's. That is how innocent our heroine was. Puh-leeze! It was beyond unbelievable how stupid whats her name behaved. I didn't like how the book wrapped up, giving no hint to whats her names father or the half sister. Started off nicely enough, but then it was skim city.
The cat was annoying.......2002-12-02
Back Cover description: Holly Garrett was in trouble. The handsome stranger who'd saved her from a storm was now asking her for help. And he was inviting her to live with him. Sure, she could prepare evening meals and give him sponge baths, but nothing had prepared her for those sexy glances he threw her way...Jordan Haynes couldn't let Holly be alone for Christmas. Not when visions of her were dancing in his head night after night. No, he could play the needy patient as well as anyone...and convince her to keep him company through the holidays-- if not longer.
This is the last book in this series about the brothers. There is one more about the half sister. Likeable lead characters and the story does progress OK, but talk about a guy that broods. The cat really annoyed me however. Jordan risked his life for the cat, and as much as it might annoy cat lovers out there--a man's life is worth more. I would have felt better if he had risked his life for her. This is where you find out why he dislikes Louise (housekeeper). This is also the reason I didn't give it another star. Even Jordan had to have realized at his age that his dad, an adult, seduced a 17 year old with no experience. His dad did it a lot to just about any one in a skirt. Why blame Louise? This part annoyed me. Holly is carrying around her own 'baggage'-- but at least she's willing to take a risk. If you have read the others, you'll read this.
A Christmas fairy tale!.......2002-03-30
It's five in the morning and I just finished this book! It was so good I could not put it down! The love story between Holly and Jordan was so sweet. I guess I liked it so much because I own my own business ina small town and I met my husband when he walked in to my shop one day. I like Susan Mallery's writing. The way she makes you fall in love with the characters, and understand what they are going through is simply magical. Read this book and all five in the "Hometown Heartbreakers" series. You will not be disappointed!
Average customer rating:
- Another good one
- Worth Buying! !
|
Full Time Father (Hometown Heartbreakers) (Silhouette Special Edition, No 1042)
Susan Mallery
Manufacturer: Silhouette
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General | Romance | Subjects | Books
Silhouette Special Edition | Series | Romance | Subjects | Books
Mallery, Susan | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Romance | Subjects | Books
General | Contemporary | Romance | Subjects | Books
Regency | Romance | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0373240422 |
Book Description
He had a secret daughter?
One moment, computer consultant Parker Hamilton was quietly programming in his house along the rugged Pacific coast. And the next, his life was thrown into a tailspin. He discovered he was a father. What would he do? What would he say to his daughter? Did she know the truth -- that he hadn't known about her? And why was her beautiful aunt, Erin Ridgway, suddenly giving him the chance to be a full-time father?
Despite everything, Erin promised herself she'd give Parker a chance to know his daughter. But what could a lonely millionaire know about raising a little girl? Well, Erin was going to have to find out . . . for the sake of Christie, who so desperately wanted a family . . .
Customer Reviews:
Another good one.......2007-09-21
Susan Mallery is one of my favorite authors once again she didn't disappoint me...
Worth Buying! !.......2006-03-24
I have this book in it's original Silhouette version. It is on my "KEEPER" shelf. I am considering buying the newer and possibly updated version to KEEP. Mallery is a writer that keeps you engrossed in her books...you can't put them down.
Lighthearted..Sexy...Suspense in some of them, but, this is the book that got me hooked on reading her books.
Books:
- The Time Regulation Institute
- The Victorians and the Visual Imagination
- "There goes flukes";: The story of New Bedford's last whaler, being the narrative of the voyage of schooner John R. Manta on Hatteras grounds, 1925, and ... of adventures in old deep-sea whaling days
- Towns of the Sandia Mountains (NM) (Images of America)
- Tradition Book: Verbena (Mage)
- Trend Following: How Great Traders Make Millions in Up or Down Markets, New Expanded Edition, (Paperback)
- Twelve Mile Limit
- Water for Elephants: A Novel
- We're in Trouble
- What Love Means to You People
Books Index
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