Blind Sight

November 15, 2010
Former ballet dancer Howrey makes an impressive debut with an intriguing novel that examines personal history. Having just met his famous actor father for the first time, Luke is spending the summer with him in Hollywood while working on his college application essay. The product of a one-night stand and the only male child in several generations of women, Luke was raised to be accepting, sensitive, and adept at reading signals, qualities that help him bond with a man he never knew and take Hollywood insanity in stride. So when his father confides a career-killing secret, revealing it in screenplay form no less, Luke understands the need to keep quiet about it. Back home in Philadelphia, his mother reveals a secret about her past. Alternating between tricky present tense first- and third-person sections, the novel speeds along with deftly drawn characters and pitch-perfect dialogue until a late unnecessary twist, dropped suddenly and left unresolved, lessens the impact of an otherwise assured debut.

November 15, 2010

Family, fame and a perceptive youngster's idea that "We are designed for belief" all collide in this debut novel.

Luke Prescott is a precocious soon-to-be high-school senior living in Delaware with this mother and grandmother. He knows about things like "neurotransmitter protein receptors" and cross-country running, but he doesn't know his father. Sara, his mother, is a picture-perfect New Age woman. Dressing up her life with elements of Buddhism and Eastern thought, she co-owns a wellness center and teaches yoga. Nana, Sara's mother and the widow of a Christian missionary killed by South American jungle tribesmen, provides both acceptance and stability for the family. That includes Luke's two sisters, Aurora and Pearl, in college in New York as the story unfolds. Nana's family traces its lineage to the 1600s through a series of women who each had three daughters, only one of whom had children, all of whom were daughters. Luke says, "I don't think it means anything," but it has informed his introspective, intuitive and reflective personality. Into this mix comes Mark Franco, Luke's biological father, the popular star of a highly rated TV series. Mark asks to meet Luke, offspring of a one-night romance, and with Sara's agreement, Mark flies Luke to Hollywood to spend the summer. Luke sees the money-fame-glamour side of life, Sara grows jealous and the particles that make up this nuclear family become rearranged. The novel resonates with authenticity, both with its description of the world of women from which Luke emerges and the world of easy celebrity in which he is tempered. Even many of Howrey's minor characters—Luke's sisters, for example—shine, and the narrative, related in alternate segments from Luke's point of view and in the third person, will draw the reader in.

A wonderfully intriguing examination of what makes, and might break, a family.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2010

Seventeen-year-old Luke Prescott spends a magical summer in Los Angeles getting to know his biological father, a successful and well-known actor, who has materialized out of thin air after being absent since Luke's birth. Through the portrayal of numerous attempts at college application essays, Luke shares details about his background and the caring mother, grandmother, and older half sisters he's grown up with in Delaware. The premise sounds rather unbelievable, like a male variation on a pauper-turned-princess tale, but it actually works in a credible and genuine way. Insightful, down-to-earth, and wise beyond his years, Luke tastes the life of a child of a celebrity and learns that fame might not be as rosy as one imagines. Over the course of the summer, he is challenged in his beliefs about his identity and comes to learn unexpected and startling secrets about his family and himself. VERDICT An enjoyable debut novel of general interest for fiction collections. [See Prepub Exploded, BookSmack!, 9/16/10.]--Sarah Conrad Weisman, Corning Community Coll., NY

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
Howreys debut is narrated by 17-year-old Luke Prescott, an introspective and thoughtful boy spending the summer with the man he has just discovered is his father. Mark Franco is a television star in Los Angeles, which is a world apart from the East Coast upbringing Luke has had with his hippy mother, religious grandmother, and two older half-sisters. Observant and sharp, Luke is struggling to write a meaningful college essay, which leads him to analyze his growing relationship with his father. The two start out as awkward but cordial strangers, but Mark eventually shares a big secret with Luke, which helps to bring them closer together. Luke grows to idolize Mark so much that his mother, Sara, starts to feel threatened by their closeness, prompting her to share a potentially shattering secret of her own. In Luke, Howrey has created a character that immediately draws you in and dares you not to care about him. His raw, straightforward voice and wry observations make this first novel a true gem.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)