Historically and culturally revelatory and poignantly emotional, but also intensely sexually explicit and disturbing.
In the late 19th century, the son of a recently deceased British banker discovers the dark erotic secrets of his father’s carefully concealed alternate life.
Robert Stapleton, son of Joseph Stapleton, the “1st Viscount Barrington,” is 19 years old when his father dies suddenly of rheumatic fever in December of 1877. At the formal reading of Joseph’s will, Robert learns that in addition to his father’s title and the family’s two homes (one in London and another in Surrey), he has inherited a third house, located on Carlton Hill in St. John’s Wood, London. The St. John’s Wood house is a surprise—Robert has never heard of its existence, though it’s evidently common knowledge among other family members. When he goes to London to examine the mysterious edifice, he’s confronted with an uncomfortable truth. The home contains a plethora of ancient Greek and Roman coins and pieces of pottery, all bearing images of male erotica, as well as several sketches of a young boy by an artist named Jean-Louis Fortin. One artifact is especially startling: “The object in the largest bag appeared to have been carved from an elephant tusk. The cylindrical shaft tapered slightly, but at one end was a large bulbous swelling, an almost completely smooth helmet-like protuberance…The piece was unmistakably phallic.” A conversation with the housekeeper reveals that Joseph entertained and offered shelter to various young male artists. Several days later, Robert visits an eminent archeologist at the British Museum and learns that the ivory object is identical to one found at the murder scene of an unscrupulous art dealer in Rome several decades earlier. The year of the murder coincides with the time Joseph spent touring the Continent studying art. Robert, who’s been wrestling with his own sexual attraction to men (an inclination he considers sinful), decides to travel through Europe to learn more about Joseph’s life during his time in Paris and Rome. Accompanying him is Joseph’s elderly and faithful valet, Walters, who speaks little but is adept at caring for Robert in style.
With Robert’s arrival in Paris, Bruegmann’s carefully scribed tale turns steamy and unsettling. The narrative is told in two parts, the first section narrated by Robert and the second by an older man, Fabrizio Croce, an art and antiquities dealer with whom Robert develops a relationship. The plotline takes a deep dive into a shadowy world of male homosexuality in 19th-century London, Paris, and Rome, a realm of sado-masochistic encounters between older, frequently married men and young boys who are paid or otherwise compensated for their participation. All of this is coated with the gloss of an interest in art obsessively focused on the male body. The novel is both a love story and an intriguing sociological and historical examination of the gay culture of the era, with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. A surprise revelation at the end of Part One adds an additional twist to the story; however, Bruegmann’s indulgence in vividly graphic and fervent descriptions of sexual rituals that involve bondage, whipping, and assorted practices of domination and submission will likely narrow his audience.
Historically and culturally revelatory and poignantly emotional, but also intensely sexually explicit and disturbing.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9798989559527
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Beautiful Dreamer Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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