A deeply emotional story about the Indian diaspora.
In Seeripat’s novel, a desperate Indian woman on the run with her two small children pays a steep price to keep her family safe from the horrors of indentured servitude.
It’s the late 1800s, and the only chance that Shivali Tewari and her family have at survival lies far away on a South African sugar cane plantation in Port Natal (now Durban), where they hope to find work as laborers. Fleeing the misogyny of her native Indian village of Ishapur, Shivali lives only to protect her daughter, Uma, and son, Hari. Although she’s plagued by guilt after killing her violent husband, Shivali will kill again if she must. For weeks, the family bears the oppressive confinement of the holding yard, waiting for the S.S.Umzimkulu to finally fulfill its quota of cheap human labor and set sail for the new land. However, the ship is a nightmarish place where “fights among men and the rape of women and men were regular events with consequences that would haunt us forever.” Themes of brutality are contrasted with those of familial love and kindness throughout Seeripat’s often moving saga. Shivali, Uma, Hari, and newly adopted members of their ragtag family are sent to Thompson’s Farm upon arrival in Port Natal, and they spend the next 10 years attempting to pursue lives of meaning and purpose under the yoke of institutionalized racism and colonial degradation. Seeripat is especially effective at relating the family’s grim odyssey by alternating between the first-person perspectives of Shivali, Uma, and Hari; at one point, for instance, Uma reminds readers, “The English didn’t really want women on the plantations. They were scared we would have babies and then there would be more Brown people than white ones in Natal. Imagine the horror of Brown people taking over!” Shivali’s inner turmoil is truly heartbreaking, and Uma’s unlikely romance with the plantation owner’s son, Richard, is rendered with all the beauty and ugliness that their world has to offer.
A deeply emotional story about the Indian diaspora.Pub Date: April 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798989650927
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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