This philosophical mystery will captivate readers thanks to a winning cast and setting.
Life and death keep getting in the way of a man attempting to heal in this debut novel.
At the heart of Heath’s mystery is Alan Wright. Residents of Eden Ridge, California, still look askance at fledgling minister Alan, who built his House of the Universal Message there at the urging of his friend and loyal parishioner Ruth MacKenzie. Alan is also the person who discovers the murdered Ruth in her antiques shop when he stops by to pick up a mystery gift that she promised him (“A pool of blood, black after hours in the open air, formed an ugly halo around her paper-white hair”). Ruth’s death hits Alan particularly hard, as he is still recovering from the loss of his wife, Patricia, in an auto accident two years prior. He decides he owes it to Ruth to investigate her murder, much to the annoyance of the local police chief. The Little Red Hens, a group of civically minded women that Ruth led, decide to help Alan. Alan determines that his gift from Ruth was to have been a rare 1612 Bible, which disappeared from her safe on the night she was killed. Alan doesn’t believe that the suspect who was caught fencing items from Ruth’s shop murdered her. He maintains the theft of the Bible increases the suspect pool, and he puts himself and those around him in danger as a result. In this series opener, Heath makes very few missteps. The author offers likable characters, starting with Alan, a man of mystery seeking to overcome his personal tragedy while standing up for people in his adopted hometown even though many have not embraced him. His Greek chorus is the Little Red Hens, some of whom fancy themselves as the town’s version of Jessica Fletcher. Heath’s villains are too obvious, but the reveal is enjoyable nevertheless. Even the former Gold Rush town of Eden Ridge becomes a character. Despite the book’s 376 pages, the narrative flies along, and the author will successfully keep readers guessing about upcoming surprises. This well-handled introduction of Heath’s reluctant hero Alan and his sidekicks bodes well for future volumes.
This philosophical mystery will captivate readers thanks to a winning cast and setting.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9866204-0-4
Page Count: 495
Publisher: Nine Pines Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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