Davies subtly synthesizes complex issues into a low-key yet compelling web of affecting destinies.
A remote Indian hill town inescapably shaped by its colonial past becomes a refuge for a self-doubting Englishman seeking peace and finding unsuspected engagement.
Lightly yet deftly crafted, hovering in tone somewhere between comedy, tragedy, and fable, Welsh author Davies’ understated second novel considers isolated characters and their yearnings against the historical long view and looming political violence. Hilary Byrd has fled English suburbia to reach this former British hill station in India, seeking an escape from modern clamor. A sexual blank slate, inclined to depression, Byrd is happy to be offered temporary shelter in a missionary’s bungalow by the local Padre and settles into a gentle routine that includes the daily services of Jamshed, an auto rickshaw driver. The Padre’s household includes Priscilla, a young woman who had been abandoned as a child. Byrd fears he's being groomed to take Priscilla on, but then, over time, as he teaches her English, sewing, and baking, he finds his feelings for her developing. But Priscilla loves another, Jamshed’s nephew Ravi, a barber who wears a white Stetson and has ambitions to become a country and western singer. Davies’ accumulation of curious, private, overlapping characters is presented tenderly in an India that seems, despite mention of internet cafes, scarcely to belong to the modern era. But nostalgia is intended to contrast with the seismic rumblings referenced in the Padre’s mentions of “the beatings and the burnings, the lynchings and the riots.” Davies is not an overtly political writer, but there will be a further pointing up of the advancing shift from imperialist past to nationalist future. The savage storm of fanaticism will eventually arrive in this sheltered corner, shattering hearts and expectations, before Davies' cast of hopefuls and misfits is released into an uncertain future.
Davies subtly synthesizes complex issues into a low-key yet compelling web of affecting destinies.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982144-83-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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