Eloquent tales that skillfully tap into a deep well of ideas.
This debut collection of fairy tales tells lyrical stories of loss and grief transformed through the power of compassion.
In the title story, a princess must sing so a man will fall in love with her, but she realizes that she can’t. Fearing she has no heart and will never know love, she leaves home. On her journey, the Frog King, the Snake Queen, and the Wolf King teach her to sing by croaking, hissing, and howling. She meets a singing young man who reassures her that “there is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect as you are,” but she doesn’t believe him. A cruel wizard bars her path because it’s prophesied that “a princess with four voices will destroy me and free the prince whom I have been holding prisoner.” Nevertheless, two birds teach her the fourth voice: shrill and shrieking bird song. Before surrendering the prince, the wizard poses four riddles to the princess. The answers reveal the wizard’s past, how he became evil, why he enjoys being wicked, and his path toward redemption. In “The Yellow Bird,” a boy follows and then becomes one with a small yellow bird, forgetting his human self. He helps a king mourning his son to discover the purpose of life, which is “to love and comfort others on their journeys.” In “The Woodcutter’s Daughter,” an older mother rabbit gives a young woman the power to hear her angry, brutish father’s true yearning for love. But the woman can’t save him, so she journeys to offer her love to the wider world. She’s given the task of filling a lake with healing water, which gives new life to many. Her father’s heart, too, is freed. In another tale, a childless older fisherman catches “The Joyfish,” which gladly allows itself to be eaten. The man and his wife are taken to an undersea kingdom where they are magically renewed.
In her book, Cardamon achieves an authentic and pleasing fairy-tale cadence, as in the opening line of the title story: “Once upon a time, when wishing still mattered, a princess lived in a land neither here nor there.” Elements such as the quest motif, animal helpers, and special tasks and characters like the princess and the woodcutter also give the tales a solid grounding in tradition. More contemporary are the stories’ themes of discovering redemption and purpose through love for everyone, even villains like the wizard and the woodcutter; there’s no typical fairy-tale revenge ending. This could seem unfitting, but the author makes it work by staying true to the worlds of the stories and the symbolic imagery. The woodcutter, for example, dies (in one sense) beneath a beautiful magic tree that grew from the buried eyes, tongue, and heart of the mother rabbit, who sacrificed herself to save the man’s daughter. But in another sense, he is asleep, dreaming of finding peace. Although the well-written collection has lessons to teach, they aren’t didactic among so much magic. While “The Princess Who Sang Like a Frog” meanders somewhat, the other offerings are more focused.
Eloquent tales that skillfully tap into a deep well of ideas.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-578-96548-2
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Sublimatio Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.
A chance meeting in a museum unlocks a long-closed door in a family’s past.
Of a piece with her last three novels—Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023)—Patchett’s latest explores the evolution of families over time, romantic secrets, and step-relationships, again giving these topics the wry and tender treatment that is distinctively hers. As it begins, Daphne Fuller’s attentive husband, Jonathan, notices that a man has been following them through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At first they chalk it up to the fact that “old guys love [Daphne],” as she told Jonathan decades ago, a notion he has held onto "like a souvenir postcard from another era." But it turns out that, though Daphne doesn’t recognize him, Eddie Triplett is her former stepfather. Like the author herself, as recalled in her 2020 essay “Three Fathers,” Daphne has had three dads. Her biological father, a deep-sea fisherman named Buddy Zabriskie, left the family early; her current stepfather, Lucas Ekker, lives with her mother in retirement in Massachusetts. Ekker is an unprepossessing sort Abby met working as the publicist for his self-help books, Positivity!, Positively Positive!, The Positivity Workbook!, Positive Every Day!, ad infinitum. The man in the museum, Eddie Triplett, was also someone her mother met through her job in publishing, and once Daphne realizes who he is, she remembers that “[their] hearts were forever stitched together.” This is because Daphne and Eddie were in a serious car accident when she was 9 years old, after which her mother immediately divorced him and evicted him from their lives. The details of that accident—among them lies the reason the novel is named after a horse called Whistler—are gradually wheedled out of Daphne by her younger sister, Leda, a clinical psychologist in New York and a reliable source of insight on the narrative’s key issues. “‘You make it sound like I’ve been keeping all this from you, but I’m not,’ [Daphne] said. ‘Who goes through life thinking about what happened when they were nine?’ ‘It’s all people think about,’ Leda said.”
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9780063511637
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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