An easygoing novel about faith, found family, and community.
In Reardon’s novel, a pastor entrenches himself in his new community.
In 1987, reverend Spencer Hill arrives in the town of Assisi, Vermont, his new home and the location of the branch of the Unitarian Universalist congregation he will soon be leading. Taking over for his retiring predecessor, Vanessa Doyle, will be both a joy and a challenge, as it seems she is well loved by the community; indeed, Spencer finds himself enjoying her company as well. As Spencer gets to know his new congregation, he finds himself drawn to one of the lay ministers, a high-school English teacher named Marshall Savage (“I remembered the youngest one better than the others, partly because of his age and partly because I liked his name: Marshall Savage. Also, he was every bit as tall as I was”). The two embark on a quiet relationship, though it is far from smooth sailing, complicated by Marshall’s traumatic past and his desire to hide his sexuality from his employer. As busy as he is with his budding relationship and the building upkeep duties he’s taken over, Spencer becomes aware of a nearby community of Pagans that he wishes to befriend and open communication with, and learns of the horrible attack on their community in 1904 that he wants to explore further. Having found his calling in the Unitarian Universalist congregation, Spencer wants the same sense of community and home for all of the residents of his new town, and he might just run himself ragged trying to achieve it all. As a reverend, Spencer’s beliefs are integral to the story, but they are treated with a sense of serenity rather than wielded with a heavy hand. Featuring a broad cast of characters, the author makes everyone feel unique, making even those who show up infrequently easily distinguishable. Even when Spencer’s relationship gets painful, or things get scary, the narrative has a calming, even tone that will keep readers engaged and entertained.
An easygoing novel about faith, found family, and community.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9781734056969
Page Count: -
Publisher: IAM Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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