A sweet novel that combines a little love story and a lot of sisterly bonding set in the beautiful Wisconsin woods.
A woman is pulled back to her childhood home, a Wisconsin summer camp, when financial woes threaten to derail it.
Cat McCarthy, 37, has spent two decades trying to create boundaries between herself and others; having grown up at a ramshackle theater camp and been responsible for her little sister and the other campers, she can’t handle the thought of letting anyone down, so she’s erected a protective shell and sailed through life alone. But when she unexpectedly gets pregnant on a second date, she’s delighted about the baby that will be arriving and expanding her circle to two[. Then, when she’s seven months along, her sister, Ginger, and nephew, Bard, text her—separately—saying they need help and asking her to come home. Their parents had taken a year off, leaving Ginger and Bard in charge, but Ginger had outsourced the responsibility to Bob, a shady motivational speaker she’s infatuated with, and his wife, Elaine, and the camp’s finances are a mess. Then Bob and Elaine disappear—apparently with all the camp’s money. What follows is a whirlwind week as Cat tries to get ready for the camp’s upcoming fundraising gala and figure out how to help her family and the camp’s staff—including Gary, a groundskeeper she finds distractingly attractive. Disentangling the financial mess at a remote location without phones or internet—Bob locked up everyone’s cell phones for a “media detox program,” and he seems to have cut the wires on the landline—is tricky for Cat, especially while heavily pregnant and with the gala looming. Invitations have been sent but no supplies ordered, and there is no way to cancel the event. This is a slow-moving, optimistic tale that still has a sense of urgency; it leans toward celebrating people’s differences while looking at their quirks as individual traits rather than abject failures.
A sweet novel that combines a little love story and a lot of sisterly bonding set in the beautiful Wisconsin woods.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781662518560
Page Count: 331
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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