Promises to be an intriguing saga, both in print and eventually, perhaps, on Masterpiece.
A Swedish heiress is ensnared by the aristocracy she tried to renounce in this novel by bestselling German author Bomann.
It’s 1913, and Agneta, daughter of Count Thure Lejongård of Lion Hall, having legally emancipated herself from her family, is pursuing the bohemian life as a painter and art student in Stockholm. She’s also, along with best friend Marit, an ardent activist for women’s rights, including the vote. (The translation from the original German opts for the outmoded term suffragette.) A telegram from home puts an end to this free-wheeling lifestyle. Her father and his male heir apparent, Agneta’s beloved brother, Hendrik, have died by fire while rescuing Lion Hall’s herd of valuable horses from a burning stable. Her mother, Stella, at first proves vindictive when Agneta assumes, reluctantly, the title of Countess and Mistress of Lion Hall. From here, the action is agonizingly slow, not helped by the competent but stilted translation. Although the narration is in first person, Agneta always seems to be regarding herself at a distance. The leisurely exposition, though frustrating, is not surprising since this is the first book of a trilogy. Agneta investigates a puzzling debt left by her father and wins her mother’s grudging and intermittent trust. Under Agneta’s control, Lion Hall maintains its close ties to the royal family, once the royals are reassured arson will not reoccur on their next visit. Agneta rejects an advantageous proposal from her childhood friend Lennard Ekberg, himself heir to a grand estate. She is holding out for a love match. Her first true love, fellow artist Michael, disdained marrying into the aristocracy, but now Agneta’s affections are ripe for trifling with by her estate manager, Max, landless younger son of German nobles. World War I has ignited, and we are well into spoiler territory by the time anything truly momentous happens. But happen it will. Suffice it to say that the Lejongård line continues, buffeted by misfortune and encroaching modernity. Stay tuned for Volume 2.
Promises to be an intriguing saga, both in print and eventually, perhaps, on Masterpiece.Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1684-1
Page Count: 527
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
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
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
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