A crash course in what it takes to recognize and survive abuse.
When the man of her dreams asks her to marry him, Alexis is in for a bumpy ride.
The novel opens on Alexis Roberts sitting in shock after having been attacked by an intruder in her home. Then the prologue flows into flashback, more than a year earlier. Alexis is hard of hearing, so when she meets Marcus Roberts at a work fundraiser and finds that he's not only handsome and charming, but also adept at American Sign Language, she's smitten. Of course, it’s complicated; Marcus’ ex-girlfriend steals him away in the middle of his flirtation with Alexis, and Alexis herself is weighing a proposal of marriage from her boyfriend. But as the days go by, she can’t get Marcus out of her head, and soon enough they begin a whirlwind courtship, leading her to break up with the boyfriend. Then, just a few short months after they first made eye contact at the fundraiser, Marcus pops the question, and all seems blissful. But…it may just be his confidence and worldliness—after all, he is about a decade older than Alexis—but Marcus seems to be pretty particular about getting his way. It starts with some disagreements about the size of the wedding, but soon enough, he's constantly criticizing Alexis for the money she spends on fixing up their house and the hours she spends working her job. He also seems to spend a lot of time in secret “client” meetings and whispering on the phone. At the same time, Alexis is convinced she's seen her ex following her. All this paranoia builds to a fever pitch as Alexis faces some major life decisions—and remembers how strong she is. Despite the lack of true surprise in any of the twists, there is a painful buildup of tension as Briscoe reminds us that true monsters hide in plain sight.
A crash course in what it takes to recognize and survive abuse.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780063246584
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
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
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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