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LET IT BE AT THAT

A lively, if slightly shapeless, novel of Windy City life.

Allen’s debut novel follows a teenage boy and a priest with a shadowy past through a Chicago neighborhood in flux.

On the South Side of Chicago in 1970, Gary “Weezer” O’Donnell is just a kid, but he feels as if he’s on the cusp of manhood. It’s the summer after seventh grade, and he resolves that he’s done with childish things—so much so, in fact, that he maliciously tells his young friend that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus during a street hockey game. Father Tom Mallon is a 30-something priest from the neighborhood who has a troubled past; his former life as a gambler casts a shadow over his present, as his parishes have had a habit of unexpectedly coming up short on funds. Tensions are rising in the all-White neighborhood, as a local group of neo-Nazis, whom Weezer immediately distrusts, makes some racist residents willing to resort to violence to maintain the segregated status quo. As Tom grapples with his complicated past, Weezer attempts to navigate his confusing present, which is leading him down a potentially dangerous path. Allen’s enthusiastic prose skillfully captures the setting’s variety and drama, as when Weezer takes in the people at a White Sox game: “There were couples on dates, families, groups of boys and girls by themselves, old wrinkly men in straw hats….These were people that Weezer didn’t see in his neighborhood….He wanted to walk up to the old man in the straw hat and ask him, where was he from?” The plot is episodic, bouncing back and forth between Weezer and Tom and between the 1970s of the present and the 1950s of Tom’s youth. Although the book captures something of the feel of the neighborhood at the time, readers may wish for a more unified story. Overall, Weezer’s and Tom’s narratives feel cobbled together somewhat arbitrarily, and it’s not entirely clear why they’ve been paired together. Still, Chicagoans, in particular, are sure to enjoy aspects of this slice-of-life work.

A lively, if slightly shapeless, novel of Windy City life.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 206

Publisher: Purpletooth Publishing

Review Posted Online: March 7, 2023

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BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

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Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).

In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

Pub Date: June 10, 2025

ISBN: 9781250320520

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

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MY FRIENDS

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.

Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

Pub Date: May 6, 2025

ISBN: 9781982112820

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: today

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

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