A timely portrait of a world bound together by the pursuit of profit.
Woo and Shinar’s novel-in-stories traces the human consequences of globalization across two decades.
The novel begins in New York in 2008 in the midst of a shooting at a conference. A group of bystanders that includes a Chinese tycoon, an American CEO, and a Japanese celebrity is taken hostage. The narrative then moves back in time to 1999 Shangcheng, where the “uneventful factory township” is preparing for a visit from the American purchasers of said factory. The communal gathering celebrating the sale of the local factory is interrupted by protests (“Down with America! Down with imperialism!”), since anti-American sentiments have been stoked by the war in Kosovo and the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The town’s mayor, Liang Dacheng, is able to appease the proctors, but he receives a threatening letter: “I know all about your treason.” An American CEO, Ryan Forrester, had offered Liang $250,000 to be deposited into an offshore bank account, along with 5% commission in stocks, to sell the factory for less than it was worth—and someone close to Liang knows his secret. The story then shifts to Cleveland, Ohio, in 2002, taking the perspective of Forrester. It’s now been three years since the underhanded deal to buy the factory was made, and while he’s reaped the benefits, others have not. The question becomes: Who will pay the cost of globalization? The shifting points of view are a treat, allowing readers to experience the ways in which the different characters’ backgrounds have shaped their relationships with wealth and greed. The authors pithily evoke the international effects of globalization: “The golden flares from the blast furnaces out there no longer a show of power but merely the shrunken remnants of Ohio’s once-thriving steelworks, which had, for the most part, relocated to China.” Woo and Shinar’s use of imagery is masterful, vividly evoking the various international settings as the story offers sharp critiques of capitalism.
A timely portrait of a world bound together by the pursuit of profit.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9798895655801
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Regalo Press
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
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
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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