A lush and beautifully written treat for readers of historical and contemporary fiction alike.
Three young women in a rural Minnesota town navigate a pivotal summer under the watchful eye of a spirit with intimate ties to the land.
Midwife Carna and her daughter, Poppy, live with Carna’s Unitarian minister sister, Violet, and her daughters, Daisy and Lilah. The younger cousins love Poppy as a sister. Jane, a long-ago Irish immigrant whose spirit watches over the girls, thinks of them in the “colors of horses.” Poppy is a “golden palomino, prancing, arrogant.” Lilah, the second oldest, is a “flossy white unicorn, shimmering in her slightness,” and Daisy, the youngest, a girl who feels most at home among nature, is a “cautious dark bay whose eyes are always watching.” Jane, who narrates, focuses largely on 15-year-old Daisy, who dreams of Jane. After all, Jane was only 15 herself when she lost her sister, Bess, while aboard a ship to America. She married Bess’ intended, who couldn’t truly love her as a wife, and fell wildly, disastrously in love with Patrick, a stable hand in her husband’s employ. Emphasis is placed on the parallels between Jane’s life and the lives of the Whitsun girls: the complexities and joys of love and sex, unplanned pregnancies, mental illness, and the trials that women and girls often endure at the expense of their minds and bodies. All characters are assumed white.
A lush and beautifully written treat for readers of historical and contemporary fiction alike. (historical sources) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3195-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage.
Adrian, the youngest of the Montague siblings, sails into tumultuous waters in search of answers about himself, the sudden death of his mother, and her mysterious, cracked spyglass.
On the summer solstice less than a year ago, Caroline Montague fell off a cliff in Aberdeen into the sea. When the Scottish hostel where she was staying sends a box of her left-behind belongings to London, Adrian—an anxious, White nobleman on the cusp of joining Parliament—discovers one of his mother’s most treasured possessions, an antique spyglass. She acquired it when she was the sole survivor of a shipwreck many years earlier. His mother always carried that spyglass with her, but on the day of her death, she had left it behind in her room. Although he never knew its full significance, Adrian is haunted by new questions and is certain the spyglass will lead him to the truth. Once again, Lee crafts an absorbing adventure with dangerous stakes, dynamic character growth, sharp social and political commentary, and a storm of emotion. Inseparable from his external search for answers about his mother, Adrian seeks a solution for himself, an end to his struggle with mental illness—a journey handled with hopeful, gentle honesty that validates the experiences of both good and bad days. Characters from the first two books play significant secondary roles, and the resolution ties up their loose ends. Humorous antics provide a well-measured balance with the heavier themes.
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage. (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-291601-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
A deliberately paced tale for those who appreciate an eerie, character-driven mystery laced with supernatural horror.
A teen girl follows cryptic clues left by her best friend, who disappeared into the night.
On a cold winter’s night, four people in a small Illinois town vanished into thin air. One of them was Nora’s best friend, Becca, whom she hadn’t spoken to in the three months since their falling out. Although they had been close since childhood, Nora and Becca’s relationship was marked by codependency—until the night when everything changed. But ever since a mysterious night the previous summer when Becca went alone into the woods for a few hours, Nora had sensed that her friend was growing distant. Following Becca’s disappearance, Nora discovered a series of messages she left pointing to their childhood goddess games, based on an urban legend. The game shifted when then-12-year-old Becca was grieving the death of her mother and seeking vengeance against the hit-and-run driver. The first part of the story is slow to get going; eventually, Nora begins to suspect that the key to the mystery lies in uncovering the origins of the goddess game. Albert slowly teases out the supernatural element, but the details remain shrouded in murkiness. What’s more interesting is the dynamic between the two friends; the story is mainly told from Nora’s perspective, as she’s the one left behind to pick up the pieces and figure out how to stand on her own. Main characters read white.
A deliberately paced tale for those who appreciate an eerie, character-driven mystery laced with supernatural horror. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781250894892
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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