An honest and well-considered look at the sweetness and stings of motherhood.
Two unexpected pregnancies birth revelations in Norman-Carbone’s novel.
In the early 2000s, Harper Alexander and Raina Edwin are both considering motherhood in their Georgia towns. Harper and her husband, Gabe, have careers that afford them an upper-middle-class lifestyle complete with a house in a well-to-do neighborhood. Raina is a homemaker, and her husband runs their farm. Before marrying Gabe, Harper made it clear she didn’t want kids (“Not having children had been part of the unwritten marriage contract”); Raina, on the other hand, already a mother of three, works to convince her husband to agree to having a fourth. When Harper unexpectedly becomes pregnant, her world eventually collides with Raina’s. In the late 1960s, high school senior Callie Sebastian is in a forbidden relationship with an older man. When she becomes pregnant, her mother Evelyn’s main concern seems to be its effect on the family’s standing in their wealthy southern community—a child born out of wedlock will not do. Callie is sent away, and a rupture between her and her family grows, unlikely to ever be mended. As the women navigate complicated situations, they each come to epic crossroads. Norman-Carbone doesn’t use overly descriptive language, focusing instead on the characters’ inner thoughts and driving action (the way in which she hints at what might lie beneath the surface is tastefully done). Unfortunately, the honey referenced in the title is never satisfyingly woven into the narrative in a significant way despite its importance to the story. Through the three main female characters, the author keenly explores varied perspectives on motherhood, taking care to touch on emotions that inform each character, including innocent and naïve yearning; anxious, trauma-induced smothering; a blissful appreciation of a calling; and a reckoning with an unexpected change of heart.
An honest and well-considered look at the sweetness and stings of motherhood.Pub Date: April 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781958231463
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2024
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
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
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