A fantastic example of ancestry-driven fiction.
In Friedman’s novel, a cultural anthropology professor at a crossroads receives a grant that draws her back into her Caribbean past.
It’s the end of her 23rd year in academia, and Dr. Jocelyn Kendall, a cultural anthropology professor, has been denied a promotion. Single and disappointed in her career, she appears headed toward a burnout-induced retirement. In a Boston hotel room, she hears her dead mother’s voice: “When I said marriage is not for you, I had my reasons.” Jocelyn’s mother died three years earlier; they had a rocky relationship that began when Jocelyn was sent to live with her grandmother in Bequia, a small island in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. After moving back with her mother at the age of 5, she never saw her grandmother again. A grant to study the connection between Boston’s and Bequia’s whaling communities offers Jocelyn both a professional reprieve and an opportunity to reconnect with her past. A past life regression sends her deeper into familial memory—as Jocelyn slips into the life of her great-great-grandmother, Mariel, who married a Portuguese sailor on the island, the narrative layers romance and danger, and questions what we inherit from the past. Dr. Gerald Hunter, a Boston curator with his own ties to the island, provides a present-day romantic possibility, though the emotional core lies in the blurring of the timelines and the women’s identities. Friedman’s prose is fluid, moving from sensual moments (“His touch was ever so light…his kisses were artful, arousing”) to tense and action-packed scenes (“He is planning to kill me!…I was Mariel yet again”). This fluidity extends to the timeline itself, and the delicious moments when the past and present merge into a state somewhere in between are a true treat to become immersed in.
A fantastic example of ancestry-driven fiction.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9798994819500
Page Count: 402
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2026
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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