This well-crafted novel puts a poignantly human face on often invisible migrant workers.
The disappearance of an immigrant working in Cyprus reveals secrets personal and political.
Nisha is a migrant worker who left her home in Sri Lanka for a job as a nanny and housekeeper in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. Petra, a well-off optician who is Nisha’s employer, is more dependent than she realizes on the nurturing, hardworking nanny. Yiannis, the tenant in an apartment in Petra’s house, is having a secret affair with Nisha (which could get Nisha fired or even deported) and has fallen in love with her. When Nisha disappears without warning one night, Petra and Yiannis soon discover they don’t know her at all. The novel brings a gradual revelation of Nisha’s many secrets, and it uncovers Petra’s and Yiannis’ hidden pasts as well. Nisha, who left her own young daughter with family in Sri Lanka to find work, was the true mother figure to Aliki, Petra’s 9-year-old daughter. Petra’s relationship to the child has always been fraught; her husband was diagnosed with cancer weeks after she became pregnant, and he died before the baby’s birth. Even before Nisha vanished, Aliki had stopped talking to her mother, and now Petra must examine her parenting. Yiannis left his rural roots behind to become successful in finance but crashed out of that career and now makes a living as a forager of wild foods for restaurants. He also has a lucrative secret occupation: poaching songbirds. Cyprus lies on major migration routes between Europe and Africa, and Yiannis and his fellow poachers catch thousands of the tiny birds with mist nets and glue sticks, then kill them and sell them as gourmet delicacies. Lefteri describes the poachers’ methods in disturbing detail, and the birds serve too as a metaphor for human refugees. Petra reports Nisha’s disappearance, but the police have no interest in looking for a missing migrant worker, so she searches on her own. Her quest leads her to a world of exploitation of migrants she never knew existed, and she and Yiannis join forces to try to uncover Nisha’s fate. Although the book’s dialogue can sometimes be stilted or preachy, its characters are engaging and its story moving.
This well-crafted novel puts a poignantly human face on often invisible migrant workers.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-23804-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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