A riveting tale about friendship and betrayal set in Yosemite.
Two women go hiking in California and encounter more danger than they ever expected in this novel.
Kate Johnson visited Yosemite National Park regularly when she was growing up. She returns now as an adult with her friend Veronica Hammond, who is going through a messy divorce. On their first night, they meet Darren and Maddock, fellow campers who invite them to a party. They decline, which is just as well. Darren and Maddock aren’t just innocently camping nearby; they’ve been paid to commit a serious crime. The next day, Kate and Veronica meet a man named Nash while hiking; he’s mysterious, and Veronica doesn’t trust him. While savoring Yosemite’s sights, Kate and Veronica talk a lot about weighty matters, including Veronica’s divorce, which stems from her husband’s leaving her for a younger woman. Veronica is bitter about that event as well as the glass ceiling she keeps hitting in her technology career. As the two women hike, they encounter Nash again. They also keep running into Darren and Maddock. The suspicious pair are clearly trying to kidnap Kate and Veronica, but Nash foils the plot. Nash, a retired soldier, was involved in an incident that made the news a year ago, one that Kate remembers. Once she works out who he really is, they start to bond and Nash reveals that he’s on the run from the law. Everyone hiking in Yosemite seems to have secrets. And Veronica’s secret is perhaps the greatest one of all and the most unexpected. Catron’s gripping story delivers a lot of intriguing twists and turns, and the big reveal is a shocking one. But the novel takes a while to get there. The tale reads a bit like a travelogue, and Kate sometimes speaks as if she’s a park official citing facts from a website—“Four million people visit Yosemite each year. The park has twelve hundred square miles, but the vast majority never venture beyond the valley’s seven square miles.” While hikers will appreciate these informative details, they bog down the first third of the book. Still, patient readers will enjoy the thrilling action that follows.
A riveting tale about friendship and betrayal set in Yosemite.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
