An evocative and absorbing tale of love, destiny, and the power of the past.
In Steidl’s novel set in a snow-covered Minnesota in the late 1980s, a chance encounter between two acquaintances develops into an intricate web of emotions, secrets, and unexpected connections.
On a cold night in 1989, Rowan McAllister collapses with a fever in a snowstorm while running through the St. Thomas campus in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she works as a teaching assistant, directing a production of Macbeth. She’s rescued by the enigmatic Christian Atherton, a musician who’s the nephew of one of the college’s deans. They’ve met before, briefly, but they find that they now have an immediate connection. Later, she wonders if she imagined the spark, and she also wonders about his relationship with a man named Ashton Tate; as it turns out, Ashton’s supernatural secret makes Christian’s story far more complex. As Rowan finds out more about the man who saved her life, she’s drawn into a world where past traumas, fate, and love intertwine in ways she never anticipated. Steidl’s prose is rich and immersive, painting vivid images of the novel’s evocative setting. “The snow-shrouded campus of St. Thomas looked mystical, its buildings rising like an ancient abbey,” Rowan observes, setting the tone for a novel steeped in atmosphere. Later, the novel shifts to more intimate spaces, highlighting Steidl’s ability to blend grand, gothic visuals with deeply personal reflections. Rowan is shown to be intelligent and introspective, navigating the complexities of her relationships with a blend of caution and curiosity. Christian, with his quiet intensity and unspoken past, adds an air of mystery that keeps the reader engaged. Their interactions are filled with tension, as when Christian asks, “Do you believe in fate?”—a question that echoes throughout the story. Rowan’s relationship with Ian is particularly well drawn, with moments of tenderness and realism. The novel’s introspective nature allows for deep character exploration, particularly as Christian’s past comes to light: “There are things about me that would shock you more than what you saw last night,” he admits early, hinting at buried truths that unravel gradually.
An evocative and absorbing tale of love, destiny, and the power of the past.Pub Date: April 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798879984699
Page Count: 446
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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