An implausible plot and main character keep this historical novel from taking off.
A young midwife is called upon to save a pope—and a city—in this work of historical fiction.
At age 17, Eleanore Blanchet is following in her late mother’s footsteps, working as a midwife and herbalist. She lives with her twin sister, Margot, who is about to marry a rich man, and their father, who works as a papal notary at Pope Clement VI’s extravagant palace in their city of Avignon. The year is 1347, and the city buzzes with rumors about a plague sweeping through Europe, as well as the news that the imperious Queen Joanna of Naples may soon be a resident of the city. Elea, as she’s called, is an anomaly for a girl of her time, literate in two languages. She takes her work seriously and has misgivings about her sister’s marriage that sound more modern than medieval. In historical novels, characters may have anachronistic attitudes and experiences, and that can work with the right grounding. This novel, though, overdoes it. Early in the story, Elea goes to the woods to gather plants and runs into a well-dressed man who introduces himself as Guigo. He begs her to sell him the hawthorn berries she’s just gathered so he can treat an important patient. When she describes the tincture she will make with them for her father, Guigo sweeps her off to his laboratory—and she realizes he is the physician to Clement. He declares her brilliant before he even knows whether the tincture will work and then, in a blink, she's in the pope’s inner chamber giving him a hands-on examination. A powerful 14th-century pope dropping trou in front of an unknown teenage girl more than strains credibility, and the plot takes more improbable twists as it progresses. There are some interesting minor characters and somber parallels between the effects of the plague and the violent social fractures it provokes in the 14th century and today, but the unlikely plot weakens the book.
An implausible plot and main character keep this historical novel from taking off.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593475034
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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