An understated but emotionally intelligent novel that refuses easy answers to complex existential questions.
A grieving woman discovers her late husband’s secret son and must deal with the potentially traumatic repercussions in Borchert’s novel.
After 23 years of working to create a life-saving swimsuit, grieving-yet-determined inventor Claire is abruptly fired when a model is injured by her latest faulty prototype. Still mourning the death of her beloved sommelier husband, David (who died of a rare genetic disorder called Sitosterolemia), Claire now faces unemployment, financial uncertainty, and the fear of losing her home. While drowning her sorrows, she discovers a photo of a boy named Luca in her husband’s jacket pocket: The child bears a striking resemblance to him. Suspecting an affair and worried the child might have inherited David’s condition, Claire travels to a vineyard in France, hoping to find the boy’s mother, Sophie. Instead, she learns that Sophie had passed away the previous year. Although Claire learns of this tragedy through an innkeeper, the man who really explains this tragedy is Gilbert, Sophie’s steadfast and guarded brother who has been running the vineyard in her stead. Once he hears of David’s death, he softens and explains the truth to Claire. As Claire navigates this bittersweet revelation, she’s forced to confront long-buried lies she had been telling David and herself. Throughout her marriage, she resisted the idea of becoming a mother (shaped by her own neglectful mother) and doubts about her own capacity to parent. Meeting Luca—curious, bright, and full of life—challenges those fears and awakens a desire to become part of something lasting. Borchert’s novel gives us no clean-cut resolutions or instant transformations. This is a story about slow, sometimes painful personal growth, as Claire’s journey is filled with hesitation, regret, and sorrow. Gilbert is given a quiet strength that resonates with the reader, and Luca’s openness helps make the vineyard a place of potential healing and transformation for Claire. But in this poignant and redemptive personal journey, Claire must decide whether to remain an outsider or embrace the family she never expected to find.
An understated but emotionally intelligent novel that refuses easy answers to complex existential questions.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9798989993147
Page Count: 171
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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