Despite an uneven story, Morell delivers an unsettling, thought-provoking perspective on political realities.
A reporter chases after broken dreams in Morell’s alternative history of secession from the United States.
Covering the “secessionism beat” for theAtlanticmagazine, Roman Wolfe has traveled around the world and seen the anger and frustration driving people to try to create new nations and divorce themselves from the political status quo. After 17 fraught months of fighting and tension, one movement has succeeded, resulting in Independence, a new country within the Great Plains of the United States that covers parts of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Roman successfully enters the blockaded country, where general instability has left people with dwindling resources, notably fuel. Tensions only continue to mount when a man is found dead—Independence’s first homicide—sparking heated debates about security and illegal immigration. A decimated police force has opened the way for violent local militias and misinformation campaigns about Mexican cartels funneling their smuggling operations into the new nation. (“We didn’t secede from the most powerful country ever to get our rear ends kicked and chased away,” a local tells Roman, justifying his contempt for migrants arriving from Mexico and Central America.) Roman drifts through towns observing and writing about what he sees, but his real motivations for coming to Independence are revealed when he reconnects with Kat Taylor, a veterinarian that he had met by chance in Texas years earlier. Kat has consumed his thoughts ever since their passionate encounter, and he has been desperate to see her again, even desperate enough to come to Independence to try to build a life there. While Kat seems uneasy around Roman, the two decide to fix up an old farm together, struggling to find their way as a new couple in a country that is also laboring to find its footing. Elections bring more political instability as mayor Albert Gonzalez rises to power, further destabilizing the allocation of resources and igniting the fiery rhetoric around freedom and community.
Morell successfully builds an expansive and immersive world out of a “what if” scenario. From Roman’s first summaries of various uprisings and populist movements to his struggle to get a money transfer into an embargoed country, Morell’s alternate history feels dense with realistic detail. Independence becomes a strange microcosm of the real world, with debates about immigration and government overreach. It’s a fascinating thought experiment exploring notions of self-determination and freedom; readers will encounter the same infuriating problems and political theater they see on the news. (“It seemed everyone harbored their own propriety blend of reality,” Roman reflects as revolutionary rebels turn against the government they supposedly chose.) Roman’s bittersweet romance with Kat should be a source of more interpersonal and emotional drama, but her sudden appearance feels inorganic and forced. (“In part two of this book, she’s inextricably intertwined with my experiences,” Roman announces abruptly to readers.) The protagonist’s disconnected, sparse, first-person narration works well when he is drifting aimlessly through desolate landscapes, but it does not feel appropriate to the troubled romance central to the book’s latter half. Readers curious about political science and visions of the future will nonetheless find it compellingly troubling how strangely familiar Morell’s fantasy world feels.
Despite an uneven story, Morell delivers an unsettling, thought-provoking perspective on political realities.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798218988111
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Unconscious Will Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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