A haunting, eloquent, and engaging historical drama.
A debut novel about two colonists in America whose lives become entwined during the early years of the 18th century.
Twenty-two-year-old Lawrence Kraymer is tired in body and soul. He owns a successful Philadelphia brewery inherited from his cruel, exacting grandfather, who raised him after the untimely death of his unwed mother. Seeking a sense of inner peace that persistently eludes him, Lawrence hires John, a young Native American, to lead him on a hunting expedition through Pennsylvania’s frontier country. Later, when John heads off to New York, Lawrence chooses to stay behind in the wilderness—but without his guide, he soon finds himself lost. In a move that will change his destiny, he seeks refuge from a storm at a farm owned by Pierre Laux. There, he meets and is captivated by the lovely, 18-year-old Catherine, Pierre’s eldest daughter. As the novel unspools, readers learn that Pierre was born an aristocrat in southern France but arrived in Philadelphia as a destitute, 13-year-old orphan. When Lawrence later decides to build a chateau near Pierre’s farm, it triggers the elder man’s painful memories of life in the Pyrenees and the loss of his mother—the first indications that the novel will take a tragic turn. From the first pages, Loux, a poet and short story author, writes with a grace and a clear love of language that permeates the narrative, as when the story explores the linguistic schisms that divided northern and southern France during Pierre’s childhood. The author includes just enough period detail to bring the era to life without feeling excessive and incorporates intriguing tidbits about French religious conflict in Pierre’s backstory. Although the action in this slow-paced, character-driven tale, which focuses mainly on Pierre, Lawrence, and Pierre’s oldest son, Jean, frequently meanders, there are always signs of approaching conflict from a past that’s not “content to rest in peace.”
A haunting, eloquent, and engaging historical drama.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-954065-01-7
Page Count: 295
Publisher: Wire Gate Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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