An engaging tale, told well, that looks at unlikely friendships and how doing the right thing can involve very hard choices.
An octogenarian and a 21-year-old college dropout form an unlikely bond as they travel across the country.
Louise Wilt has lived three lives. Currently 84, with an on-the-mend hip, she has been forced to hire young college dropout Tanner Quimby to help drive her to her various doctors’ offices and other appointments. Tanner is also healing from an injury. Falling off a two-story balcony broke her leg, ended her college soccer career and scholarship eligibility, and destroyed her dreams of playing professionally. They are an unlikely pair. And then they disappear. Jules, Louise’s oldest child, calls the police to report them missing, and much to everyone’s surprise, this leads to an FBI hunt because her mother is a suspect in a major jewel heist from 1975 who has been living under an alias since then. The story swaps among Louise’s, Tanner’s, and the FBI agent’s points of view, and shifts in time from Louise and Tanner’s middle-of-the-night decision to leave Atlanta to the FBI’s hunt for the pair that begins after they have been missing for three days, to create an engrossing tale that is not quite what it appears to be in the beginning. The story addresses themes of aging, friendship, abusive relationships, the many forms of love, morality, the line between criminality and doing the “right” thing, and what it meant to be a woman in the 1960s and '70s and how so much—and so little—has changed since then. Oakley manages that last part delicately, without veering into misandry: Bad men are very much bad people, but it's not just because of their gender. Fans of the Netflix series Dead to Me will likely enjoy this take on the bonds of female friendship.
An engaging tale, told well, that looks at unlikely friendships and how doing the right thing can involve very hard choices.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780593200803
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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