A tense, high-stakes read with a layered cast.
Samantha Church, recovering alcoholic, ace reporter for Colorado’s Grandview Perspective, and amateur sleuth, searches for her late friend’s lost little sister in the sixth installment of the series.
Sam’s young colleague Hunter was killed in an investigation gone bad. His only remaining family member was his little sister, Jenny, who disappeared years ago. Although Hunter is dead, Sam is obsessed with finding Jenny, and the obvious place to start is El Paso, where Hunter and Jenny were born. The reporter’s new friend, Sandy Petersen, an elementary school teacher, overhears an older fellow say “Hey, look at this, Jenny” to his young companion in a grocery store. Amazingly, that turns out to be the very Jenny in question, and the chase is on. The older man is Houston Meyers, a decorated Marine veteran. Turns out, he found Jenny while looking for paid sex but was immediately so struck by her beauty and vulnerability that he became her fierce protector. We are talking here about sex trafficking—Jenny was raised in Mexico but lured back to El Paso—and that is where attorney Amanda Moore and her henchman, Larry Henderson, come in. They are, in fact, sex traffickers. As we follow the hunt, there are the obligatory violent and nail-biting scenes. Ferrendelli is a competent if not an original writer, and Sam is a likable character/narrator. Several events are mentioned that one assumes took place in earlier books in the series. We learn a lot about sex trafficking and police procedures (Ferrendelli is an experienced journalist). Does it strain credulity the way Jenny is discovered? Let the reader decide. Moore is a despicable villain and is the one character without much nuance. Houston Meyers deserves mention as a very interesting and admirable character, as is Wilson Cole Jr., the wise owner of the Grandview Perspective. Typos don’t overly distract.
A tense, high-stakes read with a layered cast.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-7981-1552-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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