A sensitively crafted history of pioneers and immigrants for American history enthusiasts.
Family history becomes intertwined with the realities of crossing the Oregon Trail in Kellebrew’s historical novel.
In 1852, Marilla Washburn’s family follows the Oregon Trail and experiences its harshness, suffering the loss of Marilla’s brother Henry and enduring cholera along the way. At 15 years of age, Marilla marries John Black, an Irishman who escaped an alcoholic father to sail to Oregon. John and Marilla enjoy a gentle courtship and a happy marriage. Soon, their story becomes intertwined with that of Marilla’s brother Walter, the first of her siblings to be born in Washington territory. He’s a gunslinger, drunkard, and idealist; the author follows him through his marriage to an Indigenous woman named Little Frogs to a stint prospecting for gold in Alaska. Kellebrew’s book is part memoir, part history, and part fiction, blended together in a series of vignettes and scenes that draw the interlinked characters in her family history together. (“I suppose Walter’s bones lie there to this day, one neat bullet hole punched through his skull.”) Interspersed throughout the text are the words of her ancestors Walter Meikle and John Meikle, framing Kellebrew’s exploration of the latter half of the 19th century through the eyes of her own family. Readers will enjoy the lyrical writing style (“We saw the river take him, Henry my brother, my mother’s son, and yank him downstream like an autumn leaf”), though occasionally the flicking from past to present, and between first-person narration and third-person imaginings in the author’s voice, is somewhat jarring. This approach does, however, allow space for Kellebrew to pontificate on the various themes that are woven into the narrative, including Indigenous rights and the ownership of land, homelessness, and the strength exhibited by her forebears in taking these journeys. The whole book is drawn together by the threads of movement and worldbuilding as Kellebrew observes, “In the grand scheme of things, civilization is the anomaly, permanent habitation the aberration.”
A sensitively crafted history of pioneers and immigrants for American history enthusiasts.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781963115277
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Unsolicited Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
