A fiery novel about a character who wants more than just a room of her own.
A Pakistani woman demands money and independence—and it comes at a cost.
“I am what some call an unrelatable character, and I have done something unthinkable,” Tara, the narrator of Amna’s novel—set from the late 1980s to the early 21st century—tells the reader. “But I implore you to listen. As the storyteller, I need you on my side. And we know that a story is only as good as its beginning. So let my story begin with rage.” Tara has reason to be angry. She endured a childhood living under the shadow of her cruel brother, Lateef, in the fictional Pakistani town of Mazinagar, and thought she could escape by marrying an accountant, Hamad, and moving in with him and his family in the city of Rawalpindi, where she would be free of the “darkness and filth” she came from. But she strains under the yoke of her overbearing mother-in-law, and convinces Hamad to move with her to a new house, which she helps pay for with her wages as an art teacher. But she becomes jealous of the wealth of the mothers at her school: “Of course it was a performance; that was what made it impressive. I wanted that performance, that way of holding oneself in the world. I wanted it with a longing that threatened to drown me.” Tara finds another gig: one that would destroy her life if her brother found out about it, but one that brings in steady money. Tara is an unforgettable character, seething, stubborn, and self-aware, demanding independence in a society that very much does not want to give it to her. Amna’s writing is gorgeous, and she does an excellent job pinning Tara’s story to events in recent Pakistani history. This is a remarkably bold novel from an undeniable talent.
A fiery novel about a character who wants more than just a room of her own.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781938603778
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Dzanc
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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