A slim but intriguing view of the court of James VI of Scotland.
A royal jeweler to King James VI of Scotland finds his life uprooted when James succeeds Queen Elizabeth as the ruler of England.
The most surprising thing about Findlay’s fictionalized history of the court of King James Vl is its length. Historical novels tend to be colossal in size, laden—and sometimes weighed down—with facts and descriptions. But Findlay’s nimble work clocks in at less than 200 pages without losing any of its appeal. A playwright and journalist, she makes every word count in this entertaining retelling of Scottish history. The story is largely seen from the perspective of George Heriot, jeweler to the king of Scotland and a special favorite of the gem-besotted Queen Anna. Like the rest of the court, Heriot finds his life in Edinburgh uprooted in 1603, when Queen Elizabeth dies. King James takes over the British throne, and the move to England alters Heriot’s life in tragic and lucrative ways. Findlay’s seamless narrative weaves confidently through court intrigue and hard economic realities. Heriot, who is also a moneylender, is particular about his ledgers, but the king is careless and extravagant: He’ll risk the displeasure of all others to please his wife. Religious complications abound throughout the story: The king’s Catholic mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed, but he has sworn to uphold Protestant values and sees himself as a peacemaker. Other real-life characters appear throughout the book, among them poet William Drummond, architect Inigo Jones, and playwright Ben Jonson, as well as his more famous counterpart, William Shakespeare. Sometimes storylines could have been fleshed out more—the creation of the King James Bible, for example, deserves more attention—and sometimes Heriot’s personal losses feel a bit passed over. But, overall, Findlay’s economy of words works in the novel’s favor. She leaves the reader wishing for more, which is really all a writer can hope for.
A slim but intriguing view of the court of James VI of Scotland.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781910895559
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Scotland Street Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.
And now for some lessons in poetry and typesetting.
After Lessons in Chemistry (2022), a debut that became one of the most popular books of recent years, Garmus applies her unique comic sensibility to the story of Batter Gray, a man named after a family dog of mythic talents. A poetry maven who was reading Auden as a fourth grader, he was raised by a type-designer mother and historian father who dearly hoped he would choose some more viable profession than poetry. But via an amazing stroke of luck, he lands a job after college at Peck & Peck, an illustrious literary journal located in a beautiful building in New York City. He’s at the very bottom of the complex and dysfunctional totem pole, making copies in the basement, struggling not to run afoul of the cantankerous editor-in-chief, Salton Peck, or his smarmy assistant, Dexter York, both of whom have taken an instant dislike to our hero (and can never get his name right. Few people can). And to be honest, Batter is not without his flaws. The novel bogs down a bit in the middle, with Salton constantly excoriating his staff in ALL CAPS and much ado over the possibility that submissions have been taken outside the building, which is forbidden. Along the way, many, many famous poets are name-checked, as are many typefaces, since Batter has been raised to instantly identify a font in the wild. The best example of this occurs during his brief sojourn in jail: “The thing I kind of admired about Motherfucker II, besides his manners, was this huge tattoo he had on his neck that read I will fuck you up in ITC Bolt. Call me my mother’s son, but whoever inked it nailed the kerning.” The narrative picks up steam toward the end, as bad guys become good guys, mysteries are solved, and Batter throws one hell of a party.
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781668251065
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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