Poignant, disturbing, and riveting.
In Saye’s historical novel, a German Jewish émigré becomes a member of an elite group of United States Army soldiers trained to interrogate German POWs in World War II.
Readers first meet 17-year-old Johannes (Hans) Schmitt on November 9, 1938, as he is walking with his father to the synagogue in Briedheim, Germany. His father is a tailor, and they are bringing clothes to the children in the orphanage attached to the synagogue. Hannah Becker (Hans’ girlfriend) and her father are also at the synagogue. It is a day that will end in Hell: The German Gestapo, riding in their long black Mercedes automobiles, fill the streets. While Hans and his father are at the orphanage, the Nazis attack the kosher butcher shop, breaking the glass windows, stealing all the meat, and beating the butcher to within an inch of his life. Hans and his father escape back to their tailor shop, but soon enough, the Gestapo arrives and kills Hans’ father. It is a scene repeated all around Germany on an occasion now known as “Kristallnacht,” the night of broken glass. Hans and his mother move into the orphanage, and in August 1939, Hans learns that his mother has arranged for him to go to America, under the sponsorship of his father’s old WWI friend—now a professor at the University of Virginia. Professor Cohen is permitted to sponsor only one German, and Hans’ mother insists that he must be the one to escape Germany. Hans boards the MS Batory, the ship that takes him from Gdańsk, Poland, to the port in New Jersey. Moments after the Batory pulls out of the harbor, a German battleship, ostensibly in port to begin peace treaty talks, begins firing rockets at Gdańsk; it is the official beginning of World War II. In November 1943, Hans is inducted into the U.S. Army and posted first to Camp Pickett in Virginia and then to the secret Camp Ritchie in Maryland.
It is at Camp Ritchie that the novel gains steam, moving beyond Hans’ emotional, personal story to encompass the extraordinary tale of “class twenty-two” of the Ritchie Boys, whose unique mission was to elicit real-time battle plans and weaponry details from captured German soldiers. In the narrative’s first, terrifying heavy-action scene, class twenty-two, under fire from the ground, parachutes into France behind enemy lines in preparation for the invasion of Normandy: “The night exploded into day as the Skytrain flying beside us erupted in a fireball of brilliant orange and red. For a single moment, I watched in awestruck silence, too dumbfounded to react as the plane cartwheeled away, not a single parachute emerging from the tumbling wreckage.” Saye’s meticulous prose is graphic, frightening, and packed with military details, including intricate descriptions of German weaponry and organizational structure. From the fields behind Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to the discovery of the concentration camps, the chilling brutality of war pours off the pages. Hans is a passionate narrator who viscerally communicates his raw emotions throughout the story, particularly his love for Hannah and his mother, his raging hatred for the Nazis, and his fierce determination.
Poignant, disturbing, and riveting.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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
SEEN & HEARD
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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