A well-researched exploration of love and redemption against the backdrop of post–World War II New England.
Shortly after World War II, a young woman falls for the prized son of a wealthy family and finds herself caught in a web of international espionage.
The book opens in 1954 as Emilia Winthrop, a professor at Wellesley College, receives a phone call from her aunt informing her that the Peabodys are returning to Winthrop Island to restore their summer home. Summerly hasn’t been used since just after the war, and the return of this prominent family raises many questions. The book then shifts to 1946, back when Emilia still lived on Winthrop Island. Though the island bears her family's name, the Winthrops sold their land generations earlier, and they have since acted as hired help for the wealthy vacationers who use the place as a summer playground. Emilia reconnects with Shep Peabody, her best childhood friend, who has returned from the war a hero. As they get to know each other all over again, Emilia wonders if she and Shep could be more than just friends, though she worries their family backgrounds are simply too different. Meanwhile, Shep’s cosmopolitan and mysterious Aunt Olive has just arrived on the island, bringing along her high fashion and tales of Europe during the war. While Emilia revels in Olive's worldliness and sophistication, others on the island begin to grow suspicious of the long-lost aunt and her unusual behaviors. As the accusations against Olive grow increasingly serious, Emilia is forced to defend her new friend against allegations of disloyalty to the U.S., even whispers of treason and spying. As tensions continue to build, Emilia wonders whether Olive's presence on Winthrop might destroy her budding relationship with Shep, or worse. When the story shifts back to 1954, an older Emilia must confront the memories of that fateful summer and ask herself if she can claim the life she's always wanted. With a narrative that starts in the middle and jumps frequently between timelines, Williams’ novel requires patience as readers get the lay of the land. Once the plotlines become clearer, suspense builds, and the novel becomes entirely engaging. Full of evocative, whip-sharp dialogue, the book shines especially in its description of fictional Winthrop Island, a New England vacation enclave something like Nantucket but with idiosyncrasies and traditions all its own. As the characters struggle to regain their footing after the war, there are moments when excessive description and lengthy backstory get in the way of the plot. Even so, the author’s deft exploration of many thought-provoking issues, from social class to personal responsibility and regret, make this one a winner.
A well-researched exploration of love and redemption against the backdrop of post–World War II New England.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9780063020849
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.
A dark fantasy set on the Yale campus ends with a bang.
Galaxy “Alex” Stern of Lethe House, one of Yale’s storied secret societies, has been to hell and back. That was in Hell Bent (2023), the middle book in Bardugo’s Ninth House trilogy, where the secret societies wield not just temporal power but magic as well. Hell Bent ended with Alex and her friends rescuing her crush, mentor, and fellow Lethe officer, Daniel “Darlington” Arlington V, from eternal torment. One small wrinkle: The demon Golgarot used Alex’s blood to wedge a door open between Hell and New Haven, and his minions are slipping through. Also, one of the group has turned into a vampire, and Darlington is now half demon. “He’d given up some part of himself to preserve the rest of his human soul. He’d become both prisoner and warden.” As the final book opens, the exhausted crew are hunting yet another monster. They can’t keep this up forever; they will have to find a way to close the portal. Alex has the energetic, driven melancholy of the hard-boiled, dark fantasy heroine she is. She believes “magic is real, but safe is make-believe,” as her roommate puts it. An open hellmouth, a supportive scholar, a vampire whose story arcs precariously toward redemption, a gentleman fiend who gets literally horny when aroused, a California girl with rare supernatural powers who cracks wise as she fights fiends—the series has a lot in common with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spawn, but Bardugo’s way with words and her keen social observation keep the book from feeling derivative. A demon’s classic New England house is decorated with “ruthlessly inoffensive watercolor seascapes”; Lethe’s board president “wore the new uniform of Wall Street: a dress shirt, khakis, and a fleece with a Yale Y embroidered over the heart, as if he were on his way to a hostile takeover followed by some light rock climbing.” Will Alex and her friends get the door shut without losing Darlington? Bardugo injects her protagonist with such a convincing mix of cynicism and hope that failure seems like a distinct possibility.
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781250884312
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
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
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