Two women learn that music and friendship can bloom from loss and hard times.
A young woman struggles to understand her relationship to a country music legend.
Marijohn Shaw’s origin story sounds a little like a fairy tale: As an infant, she was found nestled in a basket outside a gas station in a rural Appalachian town and raised by Abe Shaw, the lonely but kind man who owns the place. The only clues to her identity were a note stating her first name and a broken mandolin. But just before Abe found her that day in 1973, he’d had a memorable customer: Elle Harlow, a young country singer-songwriter on the cusp of success. Abe was a huge fan, but like all Elle’s fans he was about to be disappointed. After a betrayal and a public act of violence, she disappeared, but Abe has always believed she’s connected to Marijohn. As the novel opens in 1991, those events are 18 years in the past, and Marijohn is facing questions about her future as well as her past. Then, through a bizarre series of events featuring a meteor and a video, Elle reappears, right on Abe’s doorstep, demanding the return of the mandolin and seemingly denying any relationship to Marijohn. Where she has been and why she chose to vanish form much of the book’s plot as it moves among several timelines, recounting Elle’s childhood in Appalachia and her formative friendship with a folk healer and musician named Merry, then her ambitious flight to Nashville to pursue a career in music, first successfully, then disastrously. In the book’s present, Elle becomes the kind of mentor to Marijohn that Merry was to her but struggles to imagine her own future. Some of Elle’s self-examinations of her motives and the lyrical passages about the saving grace of music get repetitive, and a couple of romances lean toward the too-good-to-be-true. But the novel is insightful in its depiction of complex relationships between women and of the grueling and sometimes dark sides of the music business.
Two women learn that music and friendship can bloom from loss and hard times.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781250399304
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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
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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