Publisher's Weekly Review
Martin (The Ghost of the Mary Celeste) sets this undercooked romp in a brothel on a fictional tropical island in the 1950s, where prostitution is legal. The story opens with beautiful blind orphan Carità Bercy arriving at the brothel in search of employment. Hired by proprietor Lila Gulliver, Carità is breezy and self-possessed, popular with the other girls and the clients. Then Ian Drohan, the self-righteous heir to one of the island's largest fortunes, falls for Carità, and the star-crossed lovers run away to be secretly married. It turns out Ian is sought by a gang boss whose goon Ian killed in a shoot-out after he murdered Ian's friend. Ian's father, Mike, searches for his son at the brothel, where he meets Lila. The two become romantically involved as they set out to find the runaways. As the plot unfolds, the enigmatic Carità, who desires most of all to go to college and sees Ian as her ticket to get there, reveals herself to be more self-serving than heartfelt. Unfortunately, Martin doesn't delve into questions of agency or victimization, slipping instead into trite language and cringe-worthy clichés ("He pulled me in gently for a five-alarm kiss"; "My knees buckled"). This lacks the punch of Martin's earlier works. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
In Martin's cheerful new novel about sex and economics, the madam of an upscale bordello hires a blind 19-year-old as a prostitute, a decision that proves life-changing for both. When the novel opens in 1954, narrator Lila, who identifies herself as the widow of a far-flung traveler named Gulliver (whom she's actually met only in the pages of a comic book), has been running her business for 10 years in the main city of a tropical island, where it's legal. Matter-of-fact Lila, who grew up in poverty and spent her late adolescence in a seedy brothel, prides herself on the respectability of her house and its clientele while diligently treating her employees fairly and with respect. A good-natured cynic, she sees herself and her girls as laborers of the service industry: "The orgasm is a powerful force in human society." The arrival of Carità only makes that power more apparent. Educated in braille and brought up in comfort, Carità comes to Lila after the uncle who raised her loses his money and kills himself. No one, including the reader, can resist her charms--not just beauty and intelligence but also insightfulness and a pragmatic will that particularly impresses Lila. Neither a victim nor a saint, Carità glides through one crisis after another, the rare literary character always in flow. The central predicament is her inconvenient romance with a client, a rich college student who's become mixed up with gangsters. Fearing that "rich boys can't be trusted," Lila tries to help Carità, only to end up in her own inappropriate relationship with the student's father. There are lively discussions of Marx, Veblen, and conspicuous consumption. There are occasional stark episodes of bloodshed and madness. There is a lot of sex. And a lot of joy. Martin's characters are not prim; neither is her book. As Lila explains, "The word 'Carnal' is so much more thrilling than 'spiritual.' " Irresistible--a funny, sexy romp that's also smart, even wise. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Martin's (I Give It to You, 2020) surprisingly playful latest observes two strong-willed women as they make the best of their initially unfortunate lives on the tropical island of Verona in 1954. Warm but practical narrator Lila Gulliver, who has christened herself after Swift's hero, has risen from poverty to run a legal brothel on Verona, which is apparently somewhere in the Caribbean. Into her employ enters beautiful, blind, and ambitious 19-year-old Carita Bercy, who soon becomes intrigued with one of the clients, the idealistic college student Ian Drohan, son of a judge. When Ian, whose roommate is the son of a local gangster, gets involved in a shootout with members of a rival gang, and Lila becomes entangled with Ian's married father, the echoes of Romeo and Juliet will remind the reader of that other Verona. Though Martin might be accused of resolving the novel's conflicts too neatly, it's a pleasure to get to know both of her intelligent and resourceful heroines.
