An absorbing fusion of a searing family drama with an unusual love story.
After losing her father, a woman discovers startling secrets in his memoir—including events she has suppressed for decades—in this novel.
Lillian Stoney Alexander cares for her ailing father, Graham, in his final days. But it’s his funeral that reignites her desire to learn specifically how her mother, Ivy, died 27 years earlier. Lillian, who was only 6 years old at the time, can’t remember anything beyond Ivy’s apparently fatal accident at their Charleston, South Carolina, ancestral home. But who’s the mysterious woman at Graham’s funeral, and why is Lillian only just now meeting her godmother and Ivy’s best friend, Alice Browder? Lillian ultimately finds a thumb drive containing Graham’s memoir. In an accompanying note, he declares his hope that it will stoke Lillian’s recollections as well as help make peace with her long-hated, fashion designer sister, Layla. His story begins during his first year as a College of Charleston professor, when he initially encountered the daughter of wealthy Edward Stoney. There was nothing conventional about Graham’s eventual relationship with Ivy, from his marriage proposal to the births of their daughters. And what awaits Lillian is a series of disconcerting revelations, even before her memories resurface. Farley’s characters aren’t easy to like. Their lives are teeming with deceit and animus while love isn’t always reciprocated. But the story is endlessly intriguing, with enough plot turns that readers who predict one or two may still be surprised. There’s likewise terrific melodrama: The sisters fight about selling their million-dollar childhood estate, and Lillian’s ex-fiance, Marcus Mullaly, reenters her life. Meanwhile, the appeal of some characters shines through, particularly artistic, sometimes withdrawn Lillian, and the family’s immutable housekeeper, Trudy Jackson, who’s both the protagonist’s close friend and her surrogate mother. The ending befits this realistic portrayal of love, family, and all the complications those two often engender.
An absorbing fusion of a searing family drama with an unusual love story. (acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73462-942-2
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Leisure Time Books
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fresh and upbeat, though not without flaws.
An earnest grad student and a faculty member with a bit of a jerkish reputation concoct a fake dating scheme in this nerdy, STEM-filled contemporary romance.
Olive Smith and professor Adam Carlsen first met in the bathroom of Adam's lab. Olive wore expired contact lenses, reducing her eyes to temporary tears, while Adam just needed to dispose of a solution. It's a memory that only one of them has held onto. Now, nearly three years later, Olive is fully committed to her research in pancreatic cancer at Stanford University's biology department. As a faculty member, Adam's reputation precedes him, since he's made many students cry or drop their programs entirely with his bluntness. When Olive needs her best friend, Anh, to think she's dating someone so Anh will feel more comfortable getting involved with Olive's barely-an-ex, Jeremy, she impulsively kisses Adam, who happens to be standing there when Anh walks by. But rumors start to spread, and the one-time kiss morphs into a fake relationship, especially as Adam sees there's a benefit for him. The university is withholding funds for Adam's research out of fear that he'll leave for a better position elsewhere. If he puts down more roots by getting involved with someone, his research funds could be released at the next budgeting meeting in about a month's time. After setting a few ground rules, Adam and Olive agree that come the end of September, they'll part ways, having gotten what they need from their arrangement. Hazelwood has a keen understanding of romance tropes and puts them to good use—in addition to fake dating, Olive and Adam are an opposites-attract pairing with their sunny and grumpy personalities—but there are a couple of weaknesses in this debut novel. Hazelwood manages to sidestep a lot of the complicated power dynamics of a student-faculty romance by putting Olive and Adam in different departments, but the impetus for their fake relationship has much higher stakes for Adam. Olive does reap the benefits of dating a faculty member, but in the end, she's still the one seemingly punished or taunted by her colleagues; readers may have been hoping for a more subversive twist. For a first novel, there's plenty of shine here, with clear signs that Hazelwood feels completely comfortable with happily-ever-afters.
Fresh and upbeat, though not without flaws.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-33682-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The queen of social activist novels has done it again. Impressive, important, and fun to read.
The World Trade Center attacks are at the center of an intricate, twisty family drama spanning decades in both directions.
“You could brace for your sister to die of a terminal illness, only to have your healthy sibling killed in a random car wreck. You could carry a baby safely to term and then, on a bright blue day in September, walk into a building that collapsed beneath your feet.” Or you could be a character in a Jodi Picoult novel and face all of the above and much, much more. Fans of My Sister’s Keeper (2004) will notice a reference to that novel in the preceding quote and be glad to hear a character from that book is back. During the Covid-19 pandemic, former teenage delinquent Jesse Fitzgerald, now a detective on the Providence, Rhode Island, police force, meets Molly Ambrose, a 19-year-old prodigy who runs the state’s emergency preparedness and response program. “Despite the fact that there were fifteen years between us and we both had enough baggage to fill a cargo hold,” as Molly puts it, the two fall madly in love. The baggage she’s referring to includes, on her side, a mother who died on 9/11 when Molly was less than three months old. Picoult supplies her signature delightful banter and gift for depicting passion and romance to win the reader’s sympathy for this possibly questionable match between dedicated public servants, whose favorite game at bedtime is “Who can think of the most terrifying worst-case scenario?” Very little more can be revealed without spoilers, but trigger warnings for this book would be a long list indeed, ranging from suicide and filicide to rape and mental illness (welcome to Picoultland!). Subplots visit evangelical and Navajo cultures as well as the ins and outs of polygraphy. Make sure to read the afterword in which Picoult explains her real-life sources of inspiration.
The queen of social activist novels has done it again. Impressive, important, and fun to read.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9780593726259
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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