An entertaining romp, but not particularly insightful or nuanced.
In Tenney’s satirical novel, scientists use time travel to bring Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to the present during a constitutional crisis.
In the year 2022, the United States has fallen under the leadership of the despotic President Ryan Bribe (“I’m the fucking President of the United States and they’ll do what I want! If not, they will pay!”), who lies and cheats and blackmails his way into power. Concerned for the future of their country, the descendants of Benjamin Franklin—twin sisters and scientists Summer and Spring Franklin—develop a quantum teleportation device that allows them to bring figures from the past into the present. Their plan is to corral Jefferson and Washington to help them find a “Secret Amendment” that they believe was drafted by Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as a stopgap to depose presidents who aspire to be kings. When Jefferson and Washington wake up in the present-day museums that were once their homes at Mt. Vernon and Monticello, however, hijinks ensue. Jefferson accidentally steals some important artifacts (though they all technically belong to him) from the museum, including a priceless necklace, making him a fugitive from the law. Washington, donned in his period’s attire, is mistaken for an actor at Mt. Vernon before he trips an alarm and rows up the Potomac to his namesake capital city, where he and Jefferson eventually (and randomly) unite; the Franklin sisters scramble to get the former presidents to cooperate with their plan. Tenney’s novel is fast-paced and cleanly written, but its satiric edge is dulled a bit by some too-obvious references (Bribe uses the same nicknames for his political opponents as Trump does) and surface-level politics. The Franklin sisters have no qualms about working with a tech billionaire, and the answer to everyone’s problems is to run a political moderate; this is not exactly biting commentary. It’s cute imagining Jefferson scarfing down McDonald’s and staying at a homeless shelter, but the fish-out-of-water concept doesn’t really take readers anywhere new.
An entertaining romp, but not particularly insightful or nuanced.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9798896490470
Page Count: 394
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2026
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
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.
And now for some lessons in poetry and typesetting.
After Lessons in Chemistry (2022), a debut that became one of the most popular books of recent years, Garmus applies her unique comic sensibility to the story of Batter Gray, a man named after a family dog of mythic talents. A poetry maven who was reading Auden as a fourth grader, he was raised by a type-designer mother and historian father who dearly hoped he would choose some more viable profession than poetry. But via an amazing stroke of luck, he lands a job after college at Peck & Peck, an illustrious literary journal located in a beautiful building in New York City. He’s at the very bottom of the complex and dysfunctional totem pole, making copies in the basement, struggling not to run afoul of the cantankerous editor-in-chief, Salton Peck, or his smarmy assistant, Dexter York, both of whom have taken an instant dislike to our hero (and can never get his name right. Few people can). And to be honest, Batter is not without his flaws. The novel bogs down a bit in the middle, with Salton constantly excoriating his staff in ALL CAPS and much ado over the possibility that submissions have been taken outside the building, which is forbidden. Along the way, many, many famous poets are name-checked, as are many typefaces, since Batter has been raised to instantly identify a font in the wild. The best example of this occurs during his brief sojourn in jail: “The thing I kind of admired about Motherfucker II, besides his manners, was this huge tattoo he had on his neck that read I will fuck you up in ITC Bolt. Call me my mother’s son, but whoever inked it nailed the kerning.” The narrative picks up steam toward the end, as bad guys become good guys, mysteries are solved, and Batter throws one hell of a party.
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781668251065
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
