A raw and evocative debut collection.
A book of poems that powerfully explores a range of personal topics from unusual angles.
Debut author Elerath creates thoughtful poetry with piquant and delightfully lyrical imagery. She explores universal themes of love (both painful and pleasurable) and sadness and sifts through the wreckage that emotions can create. She also includes expressive poems about girlhood (“The Followers of Saint Strawberry”). What sets Elerath’s work apart, however, is her examination of these concepts from offbeat perspectives, such as those of animals and arachnids (“When I Was a Garden Spider”), and in poems about such objects as a pencil and a radish. Similarly powerful is the poet’s ability to deftly weave gratifying, sensory descriptions throughout her work, including those that specifically focus on the physical body (“Ode to the Tongue”). This is especially evident in “The Lyre,” a poem about a wife who, to her own detriment, tries to fill every possible role for her husband in order to please him: “Now I know a woman can become a stone for her husband to trouble between his palms…she can be bound with wire, carved into a lyre…my wedding ring is the head of a tuning peg. When he tightens it I scream higher.” Similarly enchanting is the fablelike spirit of certain pieces combined with vivid character portraits, as in “Hansel and Gretel in Reverse,” in which the famous fairy-tale pair long to return to the witch in the woods (“I miss the cage and flame, the witch’s palms stained with ash”), and “Ugly One,” which features one of Cinderella’s stepsisters as its speaker: “yellow teeth crowd my mouth like cowrie shells, my eyes are tiny flies that flicker hunger.”
A raw and evocative debut collection.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-943491-27-8
Page Count: 86
Publisher: BkMk/Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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