A modern successor to Gaslight: disorienting and disturbing.
A young Nigerian American man is offered a “wife” against her will in this domestic thriller.
A successful lawyer in Philadelphia, Nnaemeka returns to Texas to visit his parents and finds a strange woman in the kitchen. He's immediately attracted to her “musical” voice, her shape, her cooking—and doesn’t care much about her story. To him, Ikemefuna is “simplicity itself.” Their parents knew each other in Lagos many years ago, and now she has come to America to be his wife. As the novel offers different perspectives from chapter to chapter, switching not only between Nna and Ikemefuna, but also their mothers and the next-door neighbor, it is quickly revealed that this is not just an arranged marriage story. Ikemefuna seems trapped in the house; Nna’s parents have taken (and eaten) her passport. They force her to cook, to please and obey all of them, and to sleep with Nna so that she might become pregnant as soon as possible. Nna refuses to believe what she tells him about his parents, and soon he, too, is part of the abuse. The novel teems with menace, and at a time when Black horror is thriving in Hollywood, there are early hints that there might be supernatural elements to the conflict. Ikemefuna sometimes blacks out and commits acts of violence, and then there is the strange fact that Nna looks eerily like her mother. There is no escaping, however, the real truth at the heart of the horror: This is a novel about crime, crimes committed in the name of male supremacy. It is even more so, though, a novel that interrogates the American dream and the idea that leaving home truly allows one greater opportunity to thrive. It’s about how the sins of the past cannot be outrun and how everyone has a breaking point.
A modern successor to Gaslight: disorienting and disturbing.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781951213565
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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