In Apartment 2B, the walls do talk, and their tales reveal their tenants’ minds and hearts.
One apartment on Miami Beach becomes a microcosm of seven decades of ordinary, extraordinary lives.
Apartment 2B in an art deco building called the Helena on South Miami Beach serves as setting for all of the chapters of this moving, lyrical novel in short stories. New in 1942, it first houses a young military couple from Texas: Sophie and Jack Appleton. She’s giddy to find herself in such a glamorous town, but he’s preoccupied with the war, a war that will soon enough come home to them. In 1963, an aging Cuban concert pianist named Eugenio Francisco Montes Behar grieves for a lost love and finds the man’s spirit in music. In 1972, the tenant is Sandman, a refugee in his own country, a divorced Vietnam vet with PTSD who’s badly undone by an anti-war march, then saved by hatchling sea turtles. In 1982, Isabel is a lovely 18-year-old Marielita disappointed in South Beach at the nadir of its decay but dazzled by the older painter who installs her in the apartment first as muse, then as lover. In 2002, married couple Maribel Rodriguez and Ignacio Salas live there with his girlfriend, Beatrice Dumonts—a complicated threesome created not by love or desire but by immigration law. In 2010, Pilar, a Cuban American journalist, is packing to leave 2B (now a condo) after she loses her job and faces the bitter reality of moving back in with her parents at age 40. Pilar rents her condo to a young man named Lenin García, another Cuban refugee, who soon dies. The last and longest section, set in 2012, weaves Lenin’s heartbreaking story together with that of Lana, another immigrant who’s not who she seems to be. She tries to isolate herself but becomes engulfed in all of the extraordinary stories that haunt the Helena, including those of the living. Vividly drawn characters and finely crafted prose enhance these interwoven tales.
In Apartment 2B, the walls do talk, and their tales reveal their tenants’ minds and hearts.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781640095830
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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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