A dreamy, heavily stylized retelling of a very old story.
In Sapienza’s folkloric debut novel, an orphaned teenager raised by a priest is confronted by the reappearance of her Russian mother.
Fifteen-year-old Elena resides in the attic of the onion-domed Our Lady of Sorrows church in San Francisco, where her mother left her as a baby (for reasons unknown to Elena) to be raised by a kindly priest known as Father Al. Instead of attending public school, Elena receives tutoring six days a week from Baba Vera, an old, witchlike woman whose pedagogy takes the form of unending housework. “You are special,” Father Al told Elena long ago when she asked why she didn’t go to school with other kids in the neighborhood, adding, “You are meant to study with Baba until she fulfills her plan.” Elena’s only friends are her childhood doll, Kukla, and the beautiful Vasilisa, the girl’s imaginary companion. Then two new people unexpectedly enter her life. One is Anya Prokioff, a Russian woman who arrives in town and claims to be Elena’s mother, though Father Al seems suspicious. The other is Frank Hudson, a friendly young taxicab driver who worries for Elena’s safety. Over the course of this novel, Sapienza’s prose has a fablelike quality; sometimes it relates gauzy scenes, and other times it tells bloody tales, as when Elena butchers a duck for Baba Vera: “She easily removes the gizzards, heart, and liver. Baba loves these parts too. Maybe they will go into a stew, but Baba has also been known to eat them raw. Elena thinks of what Baba said yesterday: ‘To cook, you must kill.’ ” Although the work is ostensibly set in the modern day, Sapienza does little to update the well-known Russian folktale at its heart. No one talks or acts in a manner that modern readers will recognize; indeed, it could easily have been set in medieval Russia with few changes. Fans of fairy tales may enjoy this offbeat retelling, but those expecting a contemporary novel may find themselves befuddled.
A dreamy, heavily stylized retelling of a very old story.Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781647425036
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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