An often involving tale, despite its heavy melodrama.
In Harris’ novel, a woman’s marriage is tested after her struggling ex-convict husband becomes a prime suspect in a young girl’s kidnapping.
In San Jose, California,Tiana Williams puts in 60-hour workweeks as the social media manager of a small startupwhile her stay-at-home husband, Jay, tends to their young son. Jay’s had four job offers rescinded after employers learned that he served an 18-month prison sentence for killing his father in self-defense:“For every stride he took forward, society fought against him, knocking him to his knees.” Another blow comes when police officers take him in for questioning in the disappearance of a young girl, Zoe Miller, who was at a Walmart at the same time he was. Later, Tiana’s district attorney father tells her that the missing girl is the daughter of a woman he’s having an affair with—and that’s not the only secret surrounding the girl. Then Devon Price, Tiana’s first love and ex-fiance, reappears; he abandoned her when she became pregnant with their child, and her father insisted she give up the infant for adoption. Devon, a venture capitalist, insinuates himself into the search for Zoe, and plants seeds in Tiana’s mind that Jay may be guilty. “Tiana and I are having more drama,” Jay tells his brother at one point, and some readers may feel that it’s simply too much. Fans of Tyler Perry’s serious films, however, will enjoy this melodramatic story of (mostly) good people caught up in bad situations, and who rely on love and faith to persevere. The chapters are short and the pages fly by with major revelations and marital and family crises, which combine to add a measure of suspense to the conclusion. Harris also has a deft touch with issues involving race: “As a Black man in America, any action that law enforcement considered aggressive could end with him losing his life, and Jay had too much to live for.” Jay’s plight also raises important issues regarding American society’s ill treatment of former prisoners trying to rebuild their lives.
An often involving tale, despite its heavy melodrama.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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