A potent, vigorous coming-of-age tale featuring themes of identity, sexual liberation, and introspection.
A Canadian man wrestles with his family heritage and his adult life as a gay man in this debut novel.
Ned Baldwin, the lead character in Scott’s dynamic story, has graduated from Trinity, the Canadian college where he’s spent the last half-decade unraveling the mysteries of English literature, his future, and varying aspects of himself. With his college years behind him, Ned swiftly moves to London to get out from under his family’s thumb. It’s the mid-1980s, and he knows there’s work to do on himself, particularly accepting his sexuality in positive terms since he has self-loathingly admitted: “I wake up and it’s the first thing I think of, the last thing before I go to bed, that I’m this…faggot. That I’ll always be this faggot.” At a post-graduation “last supper,” he comes out to his best friend, Daniel. The scene is stiff and subdued, but nothing compares to Ned’s ordeal of revealing his sexuality to his upper-crust parents right after a car accident. Though London is enticing to Ned, it also harbors the potential to be lonely. Luckily, his bohemian aunt Cordelia is nearby, as is a wide rainbow of gay nightclubs and drag shows Ned ventures into. As he spreads his wings in the urban playground, he starts to fully acknowledge his gay feelings and separate himself from his privileged youth growing up in the stiflingly conservative and religiously pious confines of a wealthy family. He instantly embraces the city’s eccentric artist culture, an environment affording him numerous opportunities for diverse friendships and, as with the seductive Italian Luca, a first chance at sex and love. But Ned’s new life isn’t without darkness; a suicide attempt and the specter of AIDS hang over his yearlong exploration of London.
Scott is a clever writer, luxuriating in the meticulous details of his characters and elaborating on the wisps of gossip overheard at dinner parties. While maintaining the book’s brisk pacing and solid focus on its compelling protagonist, the author allows Ned to share the narrative stage with other characters who will draw readers in with their great impact on the hero’s life and future. Ned’s mother, Helena, is portrayed as a confidante who loves her son but remains at odds with his life choices, and his father, Oliver, just wants better things for him, the kind not found in the gay community in London. Ned is also haunted by the voice of an internal saboteur who “sometimes adopted his mother’s arguments, but gave them its own nasty twist.” Fond references to the works of Evelyn Waugh, Oscar Wilde, and others lend the narrative an acute sense of literary sophistication. Ultimately, Scott’s novel paints a vivid portrait of a man riding the first big wave of self-awareness based not on the legends of those tortured souls of the past but on the thrilling potential of what lies ahead. Readers of any sexual orientation will find Ned’s voyage of discovery a vibrant reminder of life’s multicolored bounty.
A potent, vigorous coming-of-age tale featuring themes of identity, sexual liberation, and introspection.Pub Date: July 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-77751-399-3
Page Count: 259
Publisher: AOS Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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