A finely wrought portrait of a small-town family in distress.
In Saxsma’s novel, family members locked in private struggles flounder in denial and dissatisfaction.
Lloyd Wood, father of Toby and husband to Dawn, struggles with a failing restaurant business and is fighting the pressure to sell out and leave. Lloyd, while keeping money matters private from his family and ridiculing them to promote thriftiness, opts to maintain a brave face rather than share his financial difficulties with anyone. Dawn, feeling cut off from her husband and son (“In those walls, they were satellites, the three of them. They orbited one another but did not speak, did not interact, but passed each other, feeding information to everyone else, never to each other”) is deemed “lost” by her best friend, Kitty. After she sees a mysterious angel hovering over her farmland, Dawn becomes entangled in a religious cult and is expected to give them time and money she can’t afford. Toby resists his budding gay sexuality and attends therapeutic seminars to reverse it. In these linked stories, the author explores what can happen to the most vulnerable souls in our world and the great measures people will go to survive, make a buck, or remain covert in the face of adversity. The narrative strands are well plotted, with each story leading the way to the next perspective while still culminating in memorably climactic moments. While the characters are vividly rendered, the dialogue is sometimes excessively protracted and repetitive. Saxsma’s prose is rich in sensory detail, enriching the characterizations of the cast (Lloyd has “a stone-sour look and a sweat-stained ball cap atop his head”; Dawn’s “eyes were heavy, and her body was in ache. She smelled of the hard physical day”). The magical realism elements are used effectively and the storytelling is strong, but the heartbreaking ending leaves readers with little sense of hope—it’s hard not to want more for these characters.
A finely wrought portrait of a small-town family in distress.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 431
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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