An intriguing work that embodies the ferocity of a woman wronged while contemplating complex questions of home and country.
In this debut historical novel, Treviso tells the story of the Sicilian Vespers, a bloody 13th-century revolt of the Sicilian people against occupying French Angevin powers.
This tale is told through multiple perspectives but centers on a “maiden turned monster turned myth”—referring to Aetna Vespiri, the daughter of a Sicilian winemaker and knight, as well as to Medusa, the Greek mythological figure who features on the Vespiri family crest and symbolizes the determination of the oppressed to avenge injustice. When Aetna’s father dies at the hands of the Angevin cavalry’s commanding officer, Guy de Rochefort, she becomes set on freeing Sicily from French tyranny. This setup allows Treviso to tell a broader story of how Sicilian freedom and nationhood are won. Major storylines follow a mysterious mercenary in the French forces known as “Brother Devil” or Fra’Diavulu, as well as the Knights of the Teutonic Order, a group of Sicilian knights in exile who are loyal to the deposed Sicilian prince, Conradin. The novel is divided into four main sections, with each one featuring a map of regions relevant to the plot alongside excerpts from key character Don Rapaci’s account of the War of the Vespers. Treviso shows thoroughness and consistency while maintaining a snappy prose style and keeping up momentum with short, suspenseful chapters. The work balances education with action, providing a constant flow of historical facts; it even closes with recipes that feature within the story. The author also crucially highlights the diversity of the Sicilian people and their mixed Norman, Arab, and Greek heritages. Siciliana, her friend and fellow rebel Tziporah, and the French royal vicar Herbert Orleans’ daughter Manon Orleans play major roles throughout the proceedings, and Treviso depicts them all with nuance. Don Rapaci and Fra’Diavulu also have compelling backstories that help to drive the plot forward. The last third of the book offers major twists that will keep readers engaged.
An intriguing work that embodies the ferocity of a woman wronged while contemplating complex questions of home and country.Pub Date: March 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7374577-1-8
Page Count: 487
Publisher: Trevixo Originale Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2022
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
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
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