An engagingly illustrative intersection of two distinct time periods.
A historical novel concerning 20th-century archaeology and the Crusades.
Boas presents two intertwining stories that take place more than 600 years apart. One is set in the 1920s as an archaeological team led by a man named John Riley excavates Montfort castle in what was then British Mandate Palestine. The excavation comes across a major point of interest: a subterranean chamber that may hold secrets about the castle dwellers who built it. The team, however, is plagued by disgruntled employee Larry Walker, who later becomes a disgruntled former employee with a dangerous penchant for explosives and whiskey. The second narrative is set in the year 1271, in which a young man named Hermann escorts the elderly Albert of Ulm, who’s set off to the East in search of his son, who, when he disappeared, was attempting to retrieve the arm of St. John the Baptist. Hermann and Albert have picked a poor time for their expedition, however; the threat of a Saracen attack on Montfort draws near. If push comes to shove, will the castle hold? As the book alternates between the 1920s and the 13th century, readers learn much about both eras; Riley’s team wants to understand what happened in Herman’s time by piecing together the past, when men apparently risked their lives in search of bizarre treasures. The 1920s team must deal with an unpredictable foe and, in the case of one of the characters, a love interest with a local woman named Bel. Still, the 13th-century plot generates more excitement; relatively modern concerns pale in comparison to the sheer wild danger of a castle under attack, and Boas puts readers in the midst of all the “cracking of wood and the crash and crack of stone” with little promise of help for the main characters. Yet, the overall narrative manages to maintain interest with the question of how the two tales will overlap—and what exactly was going on in that subterranean chamber.
An engagingly illustrative intersection of two distinct time periods.Pub Date: March 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62-787869-2
Page Count: 341
Publisher: Wheatmark
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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