An entertaining but uneven tale about marriage, violence, and historical preservation.
A rising power couple consider the fate of an old church in this debut novel.
For almost three centuries, St. Thomas Cathedral has loomed above the town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, though it’s been years since anyone has prayed in it. The town hires the Boston-based engineering firm Hennessy Brothers to conduct a historical assessment of the property. The experts tasked with this appraisal are Carrie Medford and Jason Wiltshire, whose long-simmering romantic tension has only recently erupted into a brief courtship and a high-profile wedding (Carrie is the daughter of one of the richest men in New England). While on a honeymoon in Britain checking out cathedrals of a similar age as St. Thomas, the couple manage to uncover a massive pornography ring, making them heroes to the country’s public and earning Jason a knighthood. (They also meet an odd woman who foretells that Jason will be a “Master Builder” and “the one who will restore the holy and sanctify the holy ground.”) When they get back to Massachusetts, Jason is determined to find a way to save and renovate St. Thomas, though Carrie isn’t sure it’s possible. The project will hinge on many factors, including Jason and Carrie’s quick rise within their company; her wealthy father, a former Green Beret; and some gangland murders in China. The ambitious book flips between a few different modes: Sometimes it reads like a political thriller and sometimes a marriage story with intriguing elements of Dan Brown–style religious mystery. The novel has plenty of fun moments along the way. Unfortunately, Hill’s odd linguistic tics take some getting used to (“F-ck” appears on nearly every other page). Still, the novel’s original sin is its nearly 800-page length. Events (some of them unbelievable) keep happening, but they fail to build on one another in a meaningful way, and many readers won’t care about Carrie and Jason enough to follow them on their long journey.
An entertaining but uneven tale about marriage, violence, and historical preservation.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781998190980
Page Count: 776
Publisher: Tellwell Talent
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2024
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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