A light and engaging read, with an enticing mountain setting.
In Braun’s novel, the conclusion of her Guest Book Trilogy, a campground owner’s childhood friend seeks a fresh start and an older man works to uncover a family secret.
It is 1981, and Annie Parker is in her second year as the owner of a cluster of mountain cabins in Lake Arrowhead, California, built in the 1920s by a movie studio to be used as housing for cast members during location filming. Hollywood elites (and a few notorious gamblers) soon found Arrowhead to be a peaceful, discreet retreat. It is here that Annie has found renewed purpose in life after her divorce. Now her friend, Sarah Jones, is visiting with the same intention; she is divorcing her husband and is looking to start over. Annie is an independent interior designer; she meets new clients Hudson and Constance Fisher, an older couple looking to buy and redecorate a large house. The old cabin records reveal that Hudson’s mother, the actress Celeste Williams, stayed in one of the cabins while working on a movie in 1929. Series regulars, including Noah, Annie’s love interest; Josh, Noah’s best friend; Sam, former owner of the cabins; and Ginny, owner of a café, return as the author leads readers through another year of Annie’s personal and professional growth in the mountains. Ambling at an unhurried pace, the book feels like catching up with old friends as the narrative amiably revisits the highlights of Lake Arrowhead (“I saw a squirrel sitting on one of the large, low branches. His coat was covered in snowflakes, his eyes were closed, and he was concentrating on eating whatever morsel his little paws held. I’d never seen anything so adorable, and the sight of him made my heart swell”). Following the format established in the series’ first two installments, Annie’s chronicle alternates with the stories of other characters—in this case, Sarah’s poignant tale and Hudson’s reckoning with his complicated family history.
A light and engaging read, with an enticing mountain setting.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1647047207
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Bublish, Incorporated
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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