An immensely satisfying trilogy finale examining marriage, forgiveness, race, youth, and university life.
A Massachusetts college instructor continues to grapple with a complicated academic life and a messy marriage in this novel.
This final installment of Senturia’s Martin Quint trilogy finds the professor facing exhausting years at Bottlesworth College after a scandal that forced him to leave Cambridge Technology Institute. Then there is his deteriorating marriage to his wife, Jenny, who, despite her indiscretion with a work subordinate, still feels as “stuck” as she did when their problems began in the author’s series debut, One Man’s Purpose (2015). In an effort to reconnect, the couple have embarked on marriage counseling sessions, which are effectively dispersed throughout the book. As Martin and Jenny work on repairing their marriage, healing distrust, and exploring past triggers, critical outside events complicate things further. When Andrew, Martin’s son from his first marriage, tells him that his soccer buddy, new Black student Lavelle Walton, is being bullied by aggressive, rich White kid Lester Worthington, the professor becomes concerned the harassment is racially motivated. After discovering that Lester is the son of a Maine state government official, Martin and Andrew learn that things are continuing to escalate. A group of students targeting Lavelle and organized by Lester becomes incensed by the athlete’s presence in school and on the soccer field and leaves a threatening noose on his dorm room doorknob. Meanwhile, in an effort to reclaim his lost childhood from a mother who abandoned him, Martin sets out to find her in a journey that becomes surprisingly suspenseful and emotionally moving.
Adding texture to the narrative is Martin’s passionate advocacy for the modernization and advancement of educational philosophies, including the practice of vocal participation and peer-to-peer learning curriculums in the tech classroom. Senturia, a veteran engineering professor, sets his novel in pre–Covid-19 academia where classrooms are still in-person. The exchanges between instructors and students are realistically portrayed, avoiding what the author calls in his introduction “Zoom fatigue.” While Martin’s dialogue periodically gets muddled in the jargon of a seasoned engineering academic eager for new and adventurous avenues of improved learning, he does impart objectives that will make sense to any reader. For example, he encourages new teaching methodologies, asserting that “conversation, two-way conversation, as opposed to just reading, engages one’s entire cognitive structure and opens it up to new ideas in a remarkable way.” Branching outward, the tale also explores the nuances of infidelity and a marriage’s recovery, race-baiting among adolescents, the unique teacher-student dynamic, and the enduring psychological effects of child abandonment on an adult. As several story arcs coalesce in the final third, the volume does begin to sag beneath the weight of the pivotal subject matter it addresses. While Senturia effectively touches on several areas of the modern human condition, readers will naturally gravitate back to the core story of Martin and Jenny rebuilding their relationship with the aid of a therapist. The durability of a bruised marriage navigating the emotional fallout of betrayal is the true beating heart of the author’s engrossing trilogy. Though Senturia leaves things on a positive, upbeat note, readers will yearn for more solid conclusions about the fate of this couple on the road to marital recovery.
An immensely satisfying trilogy finale examining marriage, forgiveness, race, youth, and university life.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-03-912358-8
Page Count: 294
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
