A fizzy and fast-paced conclusion to a complicated family saga.
Gibbens concludes her multigenerational family drama series with this eventful thriller.
As this concluding volume in the author’s Awen Chronicles series opens, Nathan Bellamy, the art thief who served as the villain in the previous installment (Cow on Ice, 2022), sits in prison brooding over his revenge. Providentially, it seems to come in the form of his cellmate, a low-level crime syndicate enforcer named Tommaso, who agrees to use his contacts on the outside to effect the murders of the five people who brought Bellamy to justice, including Toronto architect Kent Gillespie; Bellamy’s former partner, Chloé Corbin; and Bellamy’s erstwhile girlfriend, art gallery owner Yoichi Song (“I’m tougher than I look,” Yoichi assures a friend. “Don’t let the manicures, facials, and wardrobe mislead you”). The text catches series readers up on all the jet setting and romantic goings-on of Gibbens’ large cast of characters, ranging from Bellamy’s list of murder targets to their current and former paramours, children, co-workers, and friends. The tangles of the plot involving powerful, plotting lawyer Langston Garner and surprisingly adventurous architect Kent Gillespie branch elegantly throughout the narrative. The author throws herself into narrating this sprawling, complicated story with tremendous gusto and a sharp skill at drawing characters: “Spencer liked desperation,” readers learn of Garner’s private investigator; “it fed his business enterprise. His clients were pushed beyond their limits by situations that had suddenly gotten out of hand—leading to desperation for them and opportunity for him.” This kind of quippy phrasing runs throughout the novel, although neither this nor the fleet pacing can save the proceedings from third-book syndrome: Too much of the plot will be all but incomprehensible to readers who aren’t familiar with at least the previous volume in the series. Newcomers shouldn’t start here.
A fizzy and fast-paced conclusion to a complicated family saga.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781039172432
Page Count: 366
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.
A chance meeting in a museum unlocks a long-closed door in a family’s past.
Of a piece with her last three novels—Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023)—Patchett’s latest explores the evolution of families over time, romantic secrets, and step-relationships, again giving these topics the wry and tender treatment that is distinctively hers. As it begins, Daphne Fuller’s attentive husband, Jonathan, notices that a man has been following them through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At first they chalk it up to the fact that “old guys love [Daphne],” as she told Jonathan decades ago, a notion he has held onto "like a souvenir postcard from another era." But it turns out that, though Daphne doesn’t recognize him, Eddie Triplett is her former stepfather. Like the author herself, as recalled in her 2020 essay “Three Fathers,” Daphne has had three dads. Her biological father, a deep-sea fisherman named Buddy Zabriskie, left the family early; her current stepfather, Lucas Ekker, lives with her mother in retirement in Massachusetts. Ekker is an unprepossessing sort Abby met working as the publicist for his self-help books, Positivity!, Positively Positive!, The Positivity Workbook!, Positive Every Day!, ad infinitum. The man in the museum, Eddie Triplett, was also someone her mother met through her job in publishing, and once Daphne realizes who he is, she remembers that “[their] hearts were forever stitched together.” This is because Daphne and Eddie were in a serious car accident when she was 9 years old, after which her mother immediately divorced him and evicted him from their lives. The details of that accident—among them lies the reason the novel is named after a horse called Whistler—are gradually wheedled out of Daphne by her younger sister, Leda, a clinical psychologist in New York and a reliable source of insight on the narrative’s key issues. “‘You make it sound like I’ve been keeping all this from you, but I’m not,’ [Daphne] said. ‘Who goes through life thinking about what happened when they were nine?’ ‘It’s all people think about,’ Leda said.”
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9780063511637
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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