Perfect for readers who long to escape into a world of magic and romance.
A reclusive woman avoids the outside world by focusing on a magical miniature house—until the real world starts knocking at her door.
When Myra Malone was 5 years old, a serious car accident killed her beloved stepgrandmother, Trixie, and injured Myra herself. The trauma—both from spending months in the hospital recovering and from losing Trixie—caused Myra to retreat into her home, attending school on her computer and only talking to her parents and her best friend, Gwen. But Trixie didn’t leave Myra completely alone. She left behind a beautifully ornate dollhouse called the Mansion—although Myra would argue that it isn’t a dollhouse, since it’s not a home for dolls. Now, in her 30s, Myra spends her days up in the attic where she decorates the tiny rooms, fills them with handmade furniture, and shares the results on her popular website. Myra’s life is small and contained, but that’s exactly how she likes it—until she discovers that her mother has been running up debt that may cause them to lose their home. In a desperate scheme to make enough money to save the house, Gwen convinces Myra to run an essay contest where, for a fee, her fans can win the chance to meet her. Even though Myra has no interest in anyone coming into her home, she agrees. What she doesn’t expect, though, is an email from a man named Alex Rakes who claims to live in a real-life, full-size version of her miniature, magical house. He’s always felt like there was something mystical about his family mansion, where mysterious music often plays on its own. As he and Myra correspond, the two of them realize that they—and their respective full-size and miniature homes—may share some deep and surprising connections. Burges creates a magical, unique world, and her characters are incredibly lovable. Myra is so lonely and stuck inside her house that it’s impossible not to root for her to open up, and Alex is similarly unmoored. The story alternates between the present and past, slowly weaving together storylines that are extremely satisfying when they finally come together.
Perfect for readers who long to escape into a world of magic and romance.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-54647-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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