Amazon.com Review

Human Croquet is a game in which some people act as hoops while others propel a blindfolded "ball" around the course. Though the game is never actually played in Kate Atkinson's remarkable novel, Human Croquet, the parallels between plot and pastime are undeniable. Atkinson, winner of the 1995 Whitbread Award in Britain, tells the story of Isobel Fairfax and her older brother, Charles. The children's parents vanished when they were young, leaving them to the care of their grandmother, now dead, and their Aunt Vinny. Recently their father has returned with "the Debbie-wife" in tow, and they all live in Arden, the family's ancestral home built on the foundations of the original manor house that burned to the ground in 1605. According to family legend, the first Fairfax took a wife who mysteriously disappeared one day, leaving in her wake a curse on the Fairfax name. More than 300 years later, Fairfax descendants are still struggling with this painful legacy.

Atkinson's novel is obviously not rooted in dull reality. Narrator Isobel has an uncanny knowledge of past and future events; Charles is obsessed with the concept of parallel universes and time travel; and a faery curse hangs over everybody. Fortunately, Kate Atkinson is a masterful writer who manages to keep her world of wonders in check. Human Croquet is no ordinary novel, and readers who venture into the Fairfax universe are in for a magical ride.

From Library Journal

This ambitious and unusual novel concerns the nature of time, memory, and, most poignantly, identity. Young Isobel and her brother, Charles, are abandoned by their parents to the loveless care of a sour aunt, stern grandmother, and evil schoolmaster. They spend seven years yearning for the truth about their parents' disappearance and for their mother's return. It is their father, however, who returns?with a new young wife. The home of the protagonists is built on a site where, in the late 16th century, parallel events took place, and the novel warps and wends from past to present to future. British author Atkinson (Behind the Scenes at the Museum, St. Martin's, 1995) here focuses on Isobel's 16th year in 1960. Dopplegangers abound; people long-dead manifest themselves to the living. As the fantastic and the mundane combine almost seamlessly, incest, puppy love, and dysfunctional families mix to darkly comic effect. For most fiction collections; get Atkinson's first book, too.?Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll. Lib., Bronxville, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Coughlin's first novel since 2002's The Cupcake Queen is an engaging paranormal romance. When Eve Lockhart outbids Gabriel Hazard for an antique pendant, he declares that owning the object is a matter of life and death for him. Two men with strange powers attack, and Eve is shocked when she and Gabriel magically fight them off, after which he suddenly disappears with some Matrix-like moves. Her grandmother, a witch, might have some answers, but Eve has denied magic since a family tragedy struck 20 years earlier. She delves into her legacy, Gabriel studies her history and professed magical naïveté, and soon passion flares as they are menaced by an evil power connected to the pendant. The romance and plot are well constructed; the only unsatisfying aspect is Eve's backstory, which manages to be both cursory and too detailed. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

An enchanting new paranormal romance from an award-winning author.

Long ago Eve Lockhart discovered that the ancient magic that was her birthright could cost her everything. So she vowed to create a normal life and was convinced she'd succeeded-until a long-lost family talisman resurfaces. A prize beyond price, the hourglass pendant ignites the fevered interest of mysterious forces who'll risk anything to possess it-forces that include one very seductive man...

The priceless pendant isn't the only thing Gabriel Hazard wants from Eve. For nearly two centuries he's searched for the hidden magic that can break a spell and grant him the one thing he craves. But he isn't alone in wanting the pendant-or Eve's magic.

Now Eve has no choice but to break her long-ago vow and claim her power, her dream of everlasting love-and her destiny.