New Age philosophy deepens this touching but sometimes mysterious coming-of-age story.
Within a framework of New Age interconnectedness, a young woman grows beyond her blighted childhood.
This is the third installment of a thought-provoking New Age fiction series, an exploration of love, loss, enlightenment, and self-discovery written by self-described “intuitive medium” Zani. Readers new to the series will find it more rewarding (and less confusing) to start with volumes 1 and 2 (Piper, Once and Again, 2016, and Waiting for Grace, 2020). The author assumes familiarity with the series’ multiple characters and their backstories, among them Eli Cranston, a lawyer-turned-psychotherapist, father to manipulative, hate-filled Grace and adoptive daughter, Hope, the 18-year-old title character here; and Piper Corcoran, who runs an intuition development group and an equine therapy program. (Horses—their personalities, care, and importance to the humans in their lives—are a significant and well-integrated presence in the story.) Jumping from one character to another in the initial chapters, the narrative suggests, but never fully clarifies all that has gone before. The prologue, which for some time appears to be an unrelated, stand-alone vignette, describes a Marine sergeant under fire in Iraq as he tries to save a grievously wounded “grunt from podunk Massachusetts.” Chapter 1 shifts to Hope, targeted by her sister, Grace (broadly written as an unredeemable mean girl for reasons presumably to be found in Book 2). Chapter 2 introduces Eli, grieving over his mentor and father figure, a Holocaust survivor. Chapters 3 and 4 belong to Piper, returning to her farm in Massachusetts, alluding to a lost love in her past 19th-century life, not explained here. Other characters remain mysteries. How did Piper’s husband, John, save “her life on many levels”? Why did handyman Clem need to find “a place to call home without the weight of the past around his neck”? The narrative gains necessary immediacy when it returns to and sustains Hope’s story—her attempt to have a relationship with her biological mother, a one-dimensional, manipulative addict; her growth toward independence and self-realization; and her moving acceptance of love as a universal continuum.
New Age philosophy deepens this touching but sometimes mysterious coming-of-age story.Pub Date: July 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781954332546
Page Count: 259
Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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