A muddled but memorable descent into love and betrayal in queer Tehran.
Two gay men must navigate a partnership defined by secrecy and violence in this Iran-set noir.
Anjir has been in a tempestuous clandestine relationship with his childhood friend Zal since they were both teenagers. In a culture of deadly homophobia, they have stayed together—not sharing a home, but having regular assignations—perhaps longer than they should, but finding new life partners is simply too dangerous. Zal has carved out a safer public life for himself by marrying a wealthy woman named Mahtob, but Anjir has a lonelier day-to-day routine: working at a hotel and staying in an apartment both owned by his uncle, who lives in America. To escape this untenable situation, the two concoct a plan straight out of the VHS bootlegs of 1940s film noir they watch together: They’ll kill Mahtob, Anjir will have gender reassignment surgery and then become Zal’s second wife. The scheme is possible because of a peculiar Iranian policy, described by Leyli, a transgender woman Anjir befriends: “Strange government. Could kill you for being gay, but will foot the bill if you agree to a sex change.” When Zal disappears after being brutally beaten while with another man, Anjir must unravel the truth of what happened and decide whether to go forward with their plan alone. Sinaki’s prose is dense with sensory detail and mythological allusions, but his dialogue, which has neither a naturalistic cadence nor the caustic wit typical of the genre, proves a stumbling point. Likewise, some poetic turns of phrase seem off by a word (e.g., “Afterward, we made planets by connecting thorn wounds on my arm”), interrupting an otherwise hypnotic flow.
A muddled but memorable descent into love and betrayal in queer Tehran.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780802163035
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.
A love triangle among young literati has a long and complicated aftermath.
King’s narrator doesn’t reveal her name until the very last page, but Sam and Yash, the brainy stars of her 17th-century literature class, call her Jordan. Actually, at first they refer to her as Daisy, for Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, but when they learn she came to their unnamed college on a golf scholarship, they change it to Jordan for Gatsby’s golfer friend. The boys are housesitting for a professor who’s spending a year at Oxford, living in a cozy, book-filled Victorian Jordan visits for the first time after watching The Deer Hunter at the student union on her first date with Sam. As their relationship proceeds, Jordan is practically living at the house herself, trying hard not to notice that she’s actually in love with Yash. A Baptist, Sam has an everything-but policy about sex that only increases the tension. The title of the book refers to a nickname for the king of hearts from an obscure card game the three of them play called Sir Hincomb Funnibuster, and both the game and variations on the moniker recur as the novel spins through and past Jordan’s senior year, then decades into the future. King is a genius at writing love stories—including Euphoria (2014), which won the Kirkus Prize—and her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia. Tragedies are on the way, though, as we know they must be, since nothing gold can stay and these darn fictional characters seem to make the same kinds of stupid mistakes that real people do. Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780802165176
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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