A pointed and poignant commentary on life on the edges in rural Ireland.
In this adroit debut novel, several already unbalanced characters from a small town in the west of Ireland find their lives thrown into disarray by an ill-conceived kidnapping.
Anxious and depressed 20-something Dev Hendrick, whose beloved mother has recently died and whose father is semi-confined to a local mental institution, is living on the dole and occasionally babysitting a shipment of drugs or two when he’s approached by his cousins, two local drug-dealing brothers who have decided to incentivize a former comrade, Cillian English, to pay what he owes them by kidnapping, holding for ransom, and threatening to kill his feckless teenage brother, Doll. After the brothers stash the bewildered kidnappee in Dev’s basement, the only thing Doll has going for him is the existence of an intelligent and resourceful girlfriend, Nicky Hennigan, who, though she’s rapidly losing interest in him, doesn’t want to see him dead. Maintaining a tone of dark humor, Barrett deftly ramps up the suspense in a situation where life and death depend on the moment-by-moment choices of characters who have “the unreliability, but also the dangerous decisiveness, of creatures who did not understand their nature and did not care to understand it.” While focusing on one fraught weekend, Barrett takes the time to let the reader get to know the characters involved in this mess in all their complicated and sometimes heartbreaking glory. In particular, Nicky, orphaned young and essentially raising herself, stands out as someone both of the town and on the brink of separating herself from it. Without losing the plot, Barrett peppers each page with wry observations on primary and peripheral characters, including Dev’s dead mom’s “increasingly unintrepid” little dog, the kidnapper who has “a face on him like a vandalised church,” or Doll puffing on a nearly defunct joint “like he was giving it CPR.”
A pointed and poignant commentary on life on the edges in rural Ireland.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780802160942
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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