An engrossing debut that sees both the good and bad sides of Costa Rica.
Three stories offer an intriguing look into the lives of Costa Rican characters—Ticos—as they deal with their roles in their families and society.
In “The Lives of Saints,” the opening story in this debut collection, an immigrant woman living in the United States reflects on her philandering husband’s life after he receives a terminal cancer diagnosis. His poor health causes her to reconsider her unwavering loyalty to him, as well as her fervent belief in her Catholic faith. “Studying the lives of saints was a conspiracy to hold us back from a full life,” she muses, “forcing us to always postpone joy for a tomorrow that might or might not come.” Indeed, her religion is what convinced her to stay with her husband, endlessly forgiving his transgressions. Similarly, in the second story, “Las Tres Marías,” three Boston-born teen sisters who return to Costa Rica with their parents are bound by locals’ perceptions of them as loose, hypersexualized gringas, simply by virtue of their beauty and origins. Pilar, the shyest sister, is so caught up in the assumptions of those around her that she begins to lose faith in herself, eventually finding herself coerced into a toxic sexual relationship with an older man. The third story, “La Familia,” involves Juan Manuel, a naturalized U.S. American Tico, called back to his native country when his brother is arrested for terrorism. He, too, is constrained by duties to his family, even when it puts him in danger. Rojas highlights these restrictions, along with the cultural misunderstandings that occur as a result of them. The intensity of Juan’s experience is downplayed by those looking in from the outside, as a customs agent reveals when Juan returns to the U.S. after the ordeal. “Wish we could all be so lucky: two years in paradise,” the agent says. Rojas weaves expertly between distinct stories and families, creating a network of Costa Rican experience that is equally loving and critical. She shows her readers that no homeland is perfect—not even “paradise.”
An engrossing debut that sees both the good and bad sides of Costa Rica.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781518508073
Page Count: -
Publisher: Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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
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