A somewhat uneven but enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage.
In Harvey’s retelling of the creation myth, heavenly agents combat a growing rebellion unfolding on Earth.
Billions of years ago, the Nothingness begins creating a new multiverse. Ultimately adopting the name The Great Being, He makes avatars to which He grants free will. Hardhearted Lucifer uses his free will to rebel, creating his personal line of avatars, who then reproduce on their own. To contend with Lucifer’s mounting forces, The Great Being forms the Agents of Cosmic Intelligence. Agents Layla and Melchizedek’s first mission takes place on Earth: They’re born into human bodies (as twin siblings) with “newly-evolved brains.” As they gradually teach Neanderthals language, they run into a serious problem—the two periodically forget their true identities. This becomes a greater concern on their next mission, which begins 160,000 years later. They return to Earth to take over two recently expired male bodies and become part of a tribe. The mission details aren’t immediately clear, though Layla and “Melchi” encounter a leader who may very well be one of Lucifer’s rebels. As the agents once again lose themselves in their human forms, the rebels (“awakened” in human bodies) can’t be sure if these warriors secretly belong to The Great Being’s intelligence branch. The rebels have “altered” human brains, which are inclined to “[take] over” entirely, and everyone has trouble remembering who they really are. In the book’s final third, yet another Earthbound mission sees five agents mingling with a host of biblical figures, including Abram (Abraham), Nimrod, and Lot.
Much of Harvey’s first installment in this new series is conceptual. That’s perfectly understandable when The Great Being forms ideas and creatures from nothing, but once the agents take on human bodies and interact with others on Earth, the meager character descriptions are much harder to accept. (The two corpses that Layla and Melchi “revive” are simply identified as “one blonde and the other darker of hair and skin.”) In the same vein, certain narrative elements pop up with nary an explanation, such as the rebels’ Planetary Command and the Free Will Zone. There’s a “cosmic smartphone,” which is unquestionably amusing but narratively immaterial; it “[functions] almost as well as” the telepathy that both agents and rebels commonly use to communicate. Still, this story deftly explores human nature—the uplifting qualities and dour traits alike: In the first mission, the often-genial agents nearly succumb to their own egos, merely over a disagreement about who concocted a successful but relatively minor plan. While the two strive to teach the humans compassion, the Earthly tribespeople seem much more interested in battle than in seeking peaceful solutions to problems. The second mission (and the longest, narratively) delightfully zeroes in on the question of identity as Layla and Melchi, on Earth primarily to teach, are sometimes driven to adopt the same behaviors and beliefs as humans. Layla’s personal confusion is particularly intriguing, as developing feelings for Melchi (her former teacher) ostensibly conflict with her male body’s sexual attraction to his wife.
A somewhat uneven but enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage.Pub Date: March 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780918538215
Page Count: 261
Publisher: The Human Effectiveness Institute
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2024
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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