A dreamy fable confronting love, death, and our inevitable inadequacy yet persistence in the face of both.
A snow-swept journey to the ends of the Earth continues Cameron's exploration of defamiliarized landscapes and the intricacies of human relationships.
A husband and wife arrive by train into the endless winter night of a mysterious Arctic region. The woman is dying of cancer; as her body erodes, her connection to—and patience for—her husband vanishes with it, but after suffering a succession of pregnancy losses throughout their marriage, she is determined to provide him with a family, a child, before she dies. They have come to the town of Borgarfjaroasysla (like Cameron's Andorra before it, a name that recalls a real place but which is released from the confines of reality through a reimagined geography and, in this case, a slightly different name) to claim a foundling at the local orphanage, the only place on Earth, given their age and the woman's failing health, that would agree to an adoption. They settle into the vast Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel, bedecked in the antiquated opulence of a bygone era and, like the town around it, sparsely occupied but filled with eerie tensions. On their first night there, the man ventures down to the hotel bar, a dark, low-ceilinged burrow emanating a red glow through a glass-beaded curtain. Here, over snifters of the regional specialty, a curious liqueur made of lichen "tinged with the silvery blue glow that snow reflects at twilight," he meets a striking, eccentric old woman named Livia Pinheiro-Rima, who quickly assumes a role in the couple's life that's half meddlesome spirit, half fairy godmother. The next morning, rather than delivering them to the orphanage to meet their son, their taxi deposits them at the home of Brother Emmanuel, a renowned healer and the only draw for travelers to the town besides the orphanage, whom Livia has decided the woman needs more than she needs a baby. Having ferried his wife to this enchanted hinterland on the threshold of eternity, where life, nature, and time flow to a dilated rhythm and she embraces the metamorphosis that awaits her, the man emerges, ambivalently, at times reluctantly, into a transformation of his own.
A dreamy fable confronting love, death, and our inevitable inadequacy yet persistence in the face of both.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-948226-96-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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