A winning combination of history, magic, and science that reiterates the importance of environmental preservation.
In 1917, as the Great War rages in Europe, an American forester discovers he has a gift that could preserve the marshlands he holds dear.
On a surveying trip in his home state of Wisconsin, Rand Brandt realizes he has a gift that could revitalize Clearwater Marsh: He can make plants grow with his hands. As a passionate preservationist influenced by John Muir, Rand recognizes that this newfound power can be used for good. He also recognizes with anger that bureaucracy may prevent him from succeeding in his dream to put preservation at the forefront of the political agenda. No stranger to discouragement, Rand considers his family’s view on his career. “Pining away in swamps was not man’s work, his father had scolded—and besides, added his mother, it would not save the places he loved.” In the weeks following the revelation of his new gift, he begins to learn its limitations and discovers it may not be all that he’d initially hoped. Unready to share the news with his superior, a ranger named Weston, he confides first in his lover, Gabriel, who is also part of his six-man survey team. Soon after, Rand is overcome by his excitement and shares the information with Weston, but he quickly regrets it as he “realize[s] he had not even considered what the Forest Service might want with his gift.” The service confirms his fear when he and his fellow foresters are told they are being sent to Europe. Rand is told he can have any post he chooses after the war, but for now, “conservation within our borders is vital, but right now, winning the war is the Forest Service’s top priority.” The conflict between wanting to do good and being unable to guides Rand’s decisions throughout the book. Compelling in its underlying conversation about environmental preservation, this book is rich with well-researched plant knowledge that conveys the delicate balance of ecosystems.
A winning combination of history, magic, and science that reiterates the importance of environmental preservation.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780299343941
Page Count: 264
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
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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