A complex tale of humanity and how small interactions can change the course of a life.
The quiet story of a man who works in the staging area where people who have recently died spend time reflecting on their lives before moving on to the next stage.
Hirasaka works in a photo studio—one of many, he assumes—where his job is to await deliveries of one photo for every day of a person’s life; then, when that person appears, he helps them come to terms with the fact that they’ve just died. During their time in his studio, he treats them to whatever snacks and beverages were their favorites and gives them space to reflect on their life through photographs. Their job is to choose one picture from every year they were alive; once that task is done and Hirasaka has built a lantern to hold them all, the newly deceased will sit and watch it spin. If a photo looks faded, that means it’s a memory that has been revisited so often it has become worn with use. In those instances, Hirasaka and his guest can travel to the 24 hours of that day to retake the picture so it’s just as rich and vibrant as it was when the memory first formed. That picture is the last thing the person will see in the lantern as they head off to the next stage. The story is told in three richly drawn vignettes, each focusing on a different person being helped by Hirasaka. A bittersweet picture emerges of complicated people from different walks of life impacted by hardships who nonetheless survived—until their ultimate passing, that is, either from natural causes or at the hands of others. As kind, or mean, or nondescript, or memorable as each person is, their strongest memories—perhaps of helping others, or making a wrong choice—are held up as experiences that made them who they are in life, impacting their future selves and who they become in this world and the next.
A complex tale of humanity and how small interactions can change the course of a life.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757437
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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