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Book ReviewsThe Phoenix |
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Book: The Phoenix
Written by: Ruth Sims |
Publisher: Writers' Collective
Average Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5
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First novels should not be this good
Rating:
5 / 5
I have to admit, I wasn't prepared to love this book as much as I did. Rarely does a book make me cry, but this one did. It's difficult to believe this is a first novel, because Ruth Sim's highly competent and polished storytelling seems to be honed from years of hard-won experience. Her decades- and continents-spanning story of two people in love (and no, it doesn't really matter that they are the same gender; love is love as Sims' story more than competently proves) is an intriguing (and often mesmerizing) blend of historical fact, pathos, comedy, and heart. Sims creates characters that are not just stock protagonists for her sweeping romantic story, but real individuals we come to know and love. This is the kind of book that you're sorry to see come to an end. Highly recommended.
Midwest Book Review: January 2007 Issue
Rating:
5 / 5
Jack Rourke and his twin brother Michael are raised by an unloving prostitute mother and an abusive sailor father in the squalor of the late nineteenth century London slums. When Jack's brother dies at age thirteen, Jack violently escapes his old man's clutches and runs away.
Nick Stuart grows up on a farm with a religious fundamentalist father and helpless mother. Raised to follow in his father's footsteps and become the country doctor/vet, Nick rebels, flees his repressive father, and enrolls at university in London to receive an education.
Both young men try hard to escape the limitations of their youth. With the help of a theater owner, Lizbet Porter, and an adoptive father, Xavier St. Denys, Jack tries to shed the horror and grief of his frightful past. He reinvents himself as Kit St. Denys and becomes an actor and owner of a repertory company. Meanwhile, Nick starts his own medical practice and is committed to helping the downtrodden and poor receive medical care.
These two men might never have met one another, except that Nick and some friends attend a performance of "Hamlet," and Nick is spellbound by the starring actor, Kit St. Denys. He goes back to see the play repeatedly. Eventually, by chance, the two men meet, and it's love and lust and compelling attraction all at first sight.
But the story is hardly begun before complications develop in the most delicious ways. Kit has hidden so much of his past, even from himself, and Nick has trouble reconciling religion, family expectations, and the overwhelming compulsion he feels for Kit. There are plot twists and unexpected turns, and just when you think you understand what will happen next, Sims upends expectations with a deft and gleeful hand.
At one point, Kit gives Nick a book of sonnets in which he inscribes the following:
Without the sanction of Society,
Without the sanction of the Church,
Without the sanction of God,
I love you.
Though the men seem destined for one another, it seems that the world, London society, the theater, whole continents, and even Kit and Nick themselves conspire to keep the two apart. How can these two talented but haunted men possibly create a life together?
THE PHOENIX is a magnificent tour de force, a novel of searing power and grace and constant surprises as it winds its way through London and New York, the slums, high society, fancy theaters, castles, madness, and the agony of one wounded heart seeking comfort and love in the arms of another man despite being without the sanction of society, church, God, or his own good sense.
Ruth Sims has created an intensely fascinating world, Dickensian in breadth and compelling in its depth and the methods she uses to bring it to life. It's become commonplace for reviewers to toss off comment like "unputdownable," but in the case of THE PHOENEX, this is absolutely true. I haven't ready anything since Sarah Waters' work for evoking such an amazing and lush Victorian feel. Though the book is classified "historical," it's wildly evocative and dramatic without being melodramatic. The characters and themes will have you thinking about this book long after you've finished it. From the beginning to the end, the reader has no sure idea where the story will go, and while we fervently hope that Nick and Kit are, indeed, destined for love and happiness, the road they travel to invent and reinvent themselves is rocky, unpredictable, and utterly engrossing.
THE PHOENIX is fantastic writing and storytelling of the highest order. This is one book not to be missed. I give it my highest recommendation. ~Lori L. Lake, author of the "Gun" Series, Different Dress, Ricochet in Time, Snow Moon Rising, Stepping Out: Short Stories, and editor of Romance for LIFE! and the Lambda Literary Award anthology finalist, The Milk of Human Kindness.
The Phoenix by Ruth Sims
Rating:
5 / 5
This is a wonderful love story between two man.Kit was an actor and Nick was a doctor.I loved the setting of the time and the places.I think that what Kit and Nick went through made them into stronger men. Story has everything you need for a good book. I was sad and sorry that Lizbeth had to die. I also liked how it ended.
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