A reflective, witty, and fun story that elegantly crosses genres and addresses intriguing themes.
Art-theft mystery meets small-town romance in Henley’s novel.
This tale tackles midlife crises in the town of Waterbury, Connecticut, which is portrayed as a run-down but friendly place. Forty-five-year-old Barnaby Brown is an artist and recovering alcoholic who works at a hardware store, struggles to stay sober, and is trying to move on from his wife’s early death. The disappearance of his pet parrot, Popsicle, leads to a search that introduces readers to other Waterbury residents. Barnaby experiences romantic entanglements with Lisa Nettler, a friendly if overbearing social worker, and Julia Morgan, an old friend. When one of his paintings is stolen, he turns to Lisa and Julia for help, and the investigation unearths unexpected history and emotion. The resolution of the theft occurs about 100 pages in, though, as this is not a traditional crime novel. Instead, little mysteries are sprinkled throughout the book to explore characters’ mistakes in the past, their dreams for their futures, and the town’s past. In doing so, Henley makes astute observations on youth and aging, community, and the relationship between art and life. Barnaby’s life, however, revolves around his local pub, O’Malley’s, as do the liveliest moments in the novel. The regulars at this establishment, from a sympathetic bartender to a rambling college professor, ably explore different character archetypes and give the setting a sense of history. Despite the dynamic relationships depicted at O’Malley’s, the bar chatter on the value of art comes across as a bit artificial, and Barnaby and Julia’s conversations occasionally sound stilted, as if they’re explaining their relationship to readers, rather than each other. Yet the author excels at expressing the book’s larger themes through dialogue about nostalgia and youth. Overall, the book creates a suspenseful journey for characters—and readers—trying to navigate life’s big questions.
A reflective, witty, and fun story that elegantly crosses genres and addresses intriguing themes.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64742-341-4
Page Count: 264
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
High-concept and highly entertaining.
Fiction writers compete to finish a famous author’s abandoned novel.
Seven writers, all but one published, have received invitations to spend the weekend with crime novelist Arthur Fletch, the world’s most successful author, on his private island off the coast of Scotland. When they arrive at his cliffside castle, they expect to take part in one of the literary salons for which Fletch is famous; instead, they’re greeted by his agent, who informs them that Fletch is dead. Why has there been nothing about this in the press? Because “there are some…loose ends that must be tied up first.” Fletch has left his eagerly anticipated final novel unfinished, so the agent has summoned the writers to the island for a competition: One of them will get to complete Fletch’s book. As premises go, this one’s a humdinger, courtesy of fantasy writer V.E. Schwab and YA author Cat Clarke, here joining forces as Clarke. The story contains an amusing throughline about the indignity of being an uncelebrated novelist; as the agent tells the assembled writers, the contest winner will receive both cash and something equally valuable: “a way out of the midlist.” The novel’s wandering perspective allows each writer to vent their private frustrations, especially with the publishing industry and with the book world’s genre hierarchy (the YA writer among the competitors understands that she and the romance writer are “supposed to support each other against the general snobbishness of the other genres”). Readers who have come for the crimes and the twists, both of which are plentiful, might grow impatient with all the characters’ backstories, but these readers will likely warm to the shop talk, which at its funniest plays like a kvetchy midlist-writers’ support group.
High-concept and highly entertaining.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780063444614
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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