An array of raw, honest, and vulnerable tales.
Bryan presents an eclectic collection of short stories set in several eras and locales, from Jamaica in the 1960s to Ontario in the 2010s.
The author describes these stories as “the manifestation of my fascination with grief and loss,” and she divides them into three sections: “Connected,” “Disconnected,” and “Reconnected.” The first section encompasses eight tales that follow several generations of a single family, tracking their migration from Jamaica to Canada across decades and continents while keeping readers firmly grounded in details. In the first story, “Soon Come,” readers meet 11-year-old Michelle, who’s busy playing jacks and contemplating her family and future in Jamaica when she meets a boy named Keith. By the fourth story, “Retreat,” readers follow Michelle and Keith’s daughter, Leslie, who’s trying to connect with a “future sister-in-law” while struggling within her own relationship. In their totality, the stories feel almost like a multigenerational novel—but before readers can get too comfortable, the second section begins, featuring stories set in their own fictional universe, with more speculative elements and spiritual realms. Readers will find the payoffs exquisite in tales of college students flying off rooftops, body-hopping science majors, haunted cabins, and cursed coins. In the final section, the author effectively steps back into the first section’s milieu. These interwoven stories skip effortlessly forward in time, like smooth stones atop a glassy lake. Although not every story is hard-hitting, all show the author’s deft skill, with the stand-alone titles holding as much significance as those in the series.
An array of raw, honest, and vulnerable tales.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9781038349880
Page Count: 213
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2026
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
A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm.
An elderly man’s posthumous journey back through his life has unexpected consequences for several people, and lessons for everyone.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that readers adore any novel set in a reading group, bookshop, or library, from the terribly sad (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 2008) to the puzzle-heavy (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, 2012) to the downright clever (The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, 2007). Haig, who’s already written The Midnight Library (2020), mines a similar vein in this novel centered on a bookseller named Wilbur Budd; place this one in the seriously sentimental category. Wilbur dies at 81 just after receiving a call from his ex-wife, Maggie. He finds himself on a classic steam-train carriage, accompanied by a younger version of the woman who founded the bookstore he turned into a global conglomerate. As Mrs. Agnes Bagdale explains, he’s on a trip to significant places and events from his life, but he’s forbidden from interfering in them, thus possibly changing the course of other people’s lives. True to his maverick tendencies, Wilbur struggles with the three rules of the train (“You get on and off the train as required. You never try and speak to yourself. And you must never be there when you fall asleep”) and struggles even more mightily as he realizes that Maggie was his true love and lifelong lodestar. While some moments verge on maudlin, as when Wilbur and Maggie goggle at Venice during their honeymoon, these are tempered by quieter observations, as when Wilbur’s oldest friend, Charlie, tells him frankly during lunch at a trendy restaurant that his constant ambition is a failing. This isn’t a subtle book and it’s not trying to be; it’s urging readers to think about their own choices, wherever they find themselves.
A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9780593833377
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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