A tearjerker that effectively explores how shame can transform into pride.
Virzo offers a novel that celebrated queer joy, resilience and creativity.
Thirty-something chef Luca’s mental health is in shambles after he finds out that his personal life has been made public in an art exhibition by his former boyfriend, Bjorn. This betrayal takes him on a journey of self-acceptance that involves attending rehab for recovery from addiction to drugs and sex, embracing art therapy, and finding a support group. He also goes to culinary school, reinvents his relationship with Christianity, and finds meaning in cooking at a café called Pan y Paz. Luca’s sister, Annie, narrates the story and offers her own insights: “A perfect dish was something he could control in a world where he often couldn’t control himself. His recovery journal became a food journal, and his emotions became recipes.” This book reminds readers that there’s no standard path to healing, and that people must explore what resonates with them and helps them take charge of their own narrative. Along the way, Virzo offers a gut-wrenching examination of what violation of consent can look like in a queer relationship in which only one partner is a member of another marginalized group. Luca is a Latine person of Argentinian descent while Bjorn, “a walking, talking Viking statue,” presents as white; what transpires between them is a scathing commentary on racism in LGBTQ+ communities. The book captures the frustrating nature of online dating forums that offer easy access to sex without the promise of care and companionship, and it paints a moving portrait of love anchored in kindness and mutual respect. Luca, who takes on a new name—Gabriel—as he forges a new identity, welcomes another person into his heart, and monogamy and polyamory are not presented in a way that extols the virtues of one and discredits the other. When asked about his views on monogamy, for instance, the new person in Gabriel’s life tell him: “I believe in honesty more than rules…But with you? I want the kind of love that looks no further.” What happens when Bjorn has another exhibition? Read to find out.
A tearjerker that effectively explores how shame can transform into pride.Pub Date: May 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798999008077
Page Count: 270
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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