A bright emergency flare of a story sent up from history’s darkness.
A woman uncovers her mother’s past in an understudied chapter of World War II history.
After her 86-year-old mother falls off a step stool in her closet, Katrine finds a hidden box with a swastika on the lid—a symbol of hate that turns out to contain the remnants of her mother’s love story. In a single day, her mother, Allina, shares the story of her childhood in Germany and journey to America, a story she’d never told Katrine before, changing the course of their relationship. Allina grew up in Badensburg, raised by her aunt and uncle and betrothed to her childhood sweetheart. Badensburg is an idyllic 150-person village, defined by lake views and strudel until the fall of 1938. That’s when Allina wakes to gunfire one day and flees Badensburg, carrying little but the forged papers that conceal her half-Jewish identity. The next day, she finds herself at a building that’s part of Heinrich Himmler’s eugenics program, Lebensborn—a “baby factory” devoted to providing children to “pure” German families. The inhabitants are told that “every mother of good blood is a sacred asset of our existence,” especially considering how many lives were lost during the war. Allina has never been good at concealing her thoughts, no matter how heretical, so SS officer Karl von Strassberg needs only a glimpse of her face to know she isn’t like the other German women in the program. Karl recruits Allina for a secret project to rescue the Lebensborn children, at great personal risk. As Germany’s power grows, Allina and Karl reveal themselves to one another, their alliance gaining momentum alongside its inevitable historical context. Allegri raises questions about duty, morality, circumstance, and sacrifice. Embodying those dilemmas are Allina, the resilient woman who refuses to become a victim, and Karl, the villain with a heart of gold. Although these old tropes do ring familiar, Allegri imbues her characters with a depth of feeling that’s alive and entirely its own.
A bright emergency flare of a story sent up from history’s darkness.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781250326522
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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