A gripping legal thriller that will grab readers from the get-go.
In this mystery, a former lawyer gets drawn back to the courtroom to defend her husband’s mistress, accused of his murder.
Riversedge, New York, located four express train stops from Manhattan, is “an impostor of a small town.” Along with its posh setting, upscale mom-and-pop stores, and “enormous brick-face library,” the town is known for its attorneys. The best and brightest congregate at the members-only Riversedge Law Club. Ingrid DiLaurio, an ex-lawyer, is not a member. She is the host of Too Busy To Die, a nationally popular podcast that focuses on “streamlining the mess in all of our lives.” Messiness becomes her business after her husband is found dead and Opal Rowen is arrested. Opal is a former friend, single mother, ex-stripper, and Ingrid’s husband’s mistress. But it’s Ingrid that Opal calls from the police station. “You owe me, Ingrid,” she ominously demands. Ingrid agrees to take her case, but while there is no murder weapon or apparent homicide, she is cautioned by a Law Club member: “Don’t let this thing suck you in…the ending is not under your control.” Also out of her control: a suspect judge, a corrupt prosecutor, and a second death. A former colleague—one whom Ingrid blames for sabotaging her law career—resurfaces with an offer to help mentor her in exchange for a favor of her own. Almost as satisfying as a good whodunit is a good “What really happened?” mystery, along the lines of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies. Secrets are rife in Riversedge, and the characters clearly know more than they are letting on. But Impellizzeri does a good job of teasing out pieces of the puzzle without readers feeling as if they have been cheated (“There is a truth that no one will know now except Ingrid…the only other person who knows how Peter died…is dead”). A former corporate lawyer, the author writes crackling courtroom drama scenes (as when, defying conventional wisdom, Ingrid puts Opal on the witness stand). This is the auspicious beginning of a series—a compelling invitation to join the Club.
A gripping legal thriller that will grab readers from the get-go.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-954332-44-7
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 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
SEEN & HEARD
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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