As warming as hot cocoa but not so sweet that it will make your teeth ache.
The residents of the Biedermeier gear up for the holidays in this winsome follow-up to Women’s Hotel (2024).
It’s December 1964 and the protagonists of Lavery’s previous novel are much as we last left them: scrimping and saving and carving out small but meaningful lives in New York City. Third-floor resident Lucianne Caruso is attempting to rectify a recent reduction in income through entrepreneurial spirit—while modern women no longer need chaperones to go out and about, she figures they might pay a small fee to be introduced to a decent and reliable date. Residential manager Katherine Heap, who’s a recovering alcoholic, has been steeling herself for another winter estranged from her family but is surprised by a letter from Ohio. Retired caricaturist Josephine Marbury and out-of-work typesetter Pauline Carter—both of the second floor—have been out of sorts ever since the latter caught the former in the midst of some light pickpocketing. The 11th floor’s Carol Lipscomb and Patricia De Boer are harboring stone eagles in their room and Mrs. Mossler, the building manager, might be catching wise. Mild scrapes ensue, without the slightest doubt that they will be resolved by Christmas. This is exactly what it appears to be: an unnecessary but nonetheless pleasurable seasonal return to a beloved cast and setting. Lavery maintains the wry tone and eye for period and character detail that made Women’s Hotel so appealing—for instance, regarding Lucianne and her various club memberships: “That is not to say that she took the Register at all seriously; it was merely sacred to her.” There is plenty of holiday spirit to be found in the Biedermeier, but marvelously little treacle.
As warming as hot cocoa but not so sweet that it will make your teeth ache.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780063455016
Page Count: 144
Publisher: HarperVia
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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