A drawn-out story of two complicated people scared to tell each other their true feelings, even after more than 20 years.
After dressing down a director and being canceled by the public, America’s (now former) rom-com sweetheart goes on a road trip to discover which of her exes wrote her an anonymous love letter.
Thirty-four-year-old Birdie Robinson, from Medford, Oregon, is movie royalty. Except she’s really Birdie Maxwell from Barton, California, and she's been caught in an epic downward spiral after having a tantrum on the set of her latest movie. The fact that she was really calling out the director for being handsy with extras and day actors is swept under the rug. Her attempt at an apology video is a failure, and the public has turned very much against her, so she finds herself retreating to her childhood home in the middle of California, an origin story she’s kept entirely secret during the rise of her acting career. While she's going through boxes of old papers, she finds an anonymous love letter she'd never seen before—no date, no signature—and decides, for better or worse, that what she needs to rehabilitate her image is a rom-com of her own making in which she tracks down all her exes to ask if they wrote the letter. Along for the ride is Elliot O'Brien, her best friend Mona’s twin brother. She’s known Mona, now a dive bar owner, and Elliot, now a renowned reporter, since the twins moved to town when they were all 12. The story follows the arc of Birdie's quest in a rickety RV to find the handful of exes who could have written the letter and Elliott’s reporting of the effort. Alternating between Birdie's and Elliot's viewpoints, the straightforward story is bolstered by the significant amount of space each main character spends thinking about the crush they've had on the other since they were kids and regretting the awkward end to a one-night stand they had seven years earlier.
A drawn-out story of two complicated people scared to tell each other their true feelings, even after more than 20 years.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593546550
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 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
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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