Hovers awkwardly between YA fantasy/romance and magical realism for grown-ups.
Debut adult novel from the bestselling author of The Last Legacy (2021) and Namesake (2021).
August Salt was 18 when he was accused of murdering his friend Lily Morgan. No longer welcome on Saoirse, the tiny Pacific Northwest island where they lived, he and his mother moved to the mainland, changed their last name, and started a new life. Fourteen years later, his mother’s insistence that her ashes be buried on her ancestral home sends him back to a place he didn’t expect to see again. For most of Saoirse’s residents, his return is unwelcome. For Emery Blackwood, it stirs up feelings she’s spent her whole adult life trying to suppress. An isolated community, an unsolved mystery, long-buried secrets coming to light: This is a classic setup for psychological suspense or gothic horror, and this story offers a bit of both. But it also offers a little something extra: The women of Saoirse are witches. Young has written several young adult novels full of invention, adventure, and sorcery. By the end of this novel, though, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that she decided writing for grown-ups means combining a dour, lifeless tone with a plot that barely moves. And there’s something almost perverse about a narrative with a witch protagonist being so miserly with magic. The central tensions driving the story are pretty simple. Neither Emery nor August has ever recovered from the abrupt end of their youthful romance. Lily’s murderer has never been found. The people of Saoirse are worried that August will try to reclaim the orchard that his grandfather left to the community. Saoirse is a place unlike any other. The most compelling of these—the mystery surrounding Lily’s death, the unique nature of the island—get the least attention. August and Emery only decide to investigate their friend’s murder late in the novel. And, despite every first-person narrator here assuring us that Saoirse is a singular place with its own rules, the island comes across like any other small, insular place that depends on a seasonal tourism industry—sporadic acts of witchcraft notwithstanding.
Hovers awkwardly between YA fantasy/romance and magical realism for grown-ups.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35851-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
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