A perennial tale of a woman fighting for her place in a man’s world.
A fictionalized telling of the life of American art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose story resounds with contemporary themes.
Despite her efforts, recently married Isabella can’t fit into Boston’s high society. Her humor is too brash, her fashion is never au courant, and, most damnable of all, she’s not content to sit around with the ladies while the men get to discuss literature and art. Isabella’s early married life is marked by tragedy—first she takes a long time to conceive, then she loses her 2-year-old to pneumonia and, shortly after, suffers a miscarriage that leaves her permanently unable to get pregnant. These compounding tragedies push Isabella even further out from Boston’s elite inner circle—after all, how can a woman in the mid-1800s hope to belong to high society if she's not even a mother? But in spite of these tragedies (or, perhaps, because of them?), Isabella is more determined than ever to find her place. With her husband, Jack, Isabella sets off on a European voyage during which she meets a host of famous artists and authors, thus launching her life’s passion: collecting people and their work. Isabella’s correspondence with those we now know as greats (Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few) are delightfully sprinkled throughout the novel. Historians may bristle at Franklin’s choice to present as true aspects of Isabella’s life that others have merely speculated about, such as her possible affair with author F. Marion Crawford. Nonetheless, Franklin paints an engaging portrait of a bold yet vulnerable woman whose feminist determination will certainly appeal to contemporary readers, as will her desires for belonging, acceptance, and the often elusive quest to lead a life of purpose: “Is it wrong for a woman to want more?…Oh, how I want and want and want—to study the library arches and entertain and feel myself integral to the world as though I am the walls of a house.”
A perennial tale of a woman fighting for her place in a man’s world.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781567927405
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tale of second chances delivered with wit and heart.
Self-made Stafford Hopkins may be “a successful man, his happiness maintained by diet, exercise, and well-planned trips to fine places,” but his more modest past is about to return and claim him.
Finn’s quirkily engaging debut has redemption stamped all over it. Its central character, former TV network supremo Stafford, is now enjoying an involuntary retirement while continuously sparring with his wife, Agnes, all part of their feisty three-decades-long marriage. Stafford, whose origins are in small-town Canada, is secretly carrying a lifelong burden of guilt regarding his best friend from childhood, Bobby Shepherd. Agnes too has a murky history, “the uneducated and illegitimate daughter of a drug-addled suicide from Wisconsin.” But having made millions, Stafford has reached a place of cushioned and luxurious security, moving among homes in Los Angeles, New York, and Aspen. Yet it’s the couple’s custom-built retirement house in Maui where the book’s action mainly takes place, during some 10 days in March, 2003. The pair have one child, Callie, now a grown woman, smart but spoiled, whom they acknowledge to have parented badly. And then, after a distant, fatal car crash, a letter arrives out of the blue which will pull Stafford back into his remote past and deliver a responsibility that upends everything. Finn’s style is mordant and often comic, dotted with Agnes and Stafford’s snippy exchanges that can be reminiscent of Hepburn and Tracy. The novel’s central section—burdened by an overload of history, both general and specific, after Stafford returns to his homeland—sags in places, but elsewhere the narrative confidently entertains. Its concluding chapters see a change of tone and perspective, and wrap up rather tidily, but the softening leads to a place of tenderness rather than sentimentality.
A tale of second chances delivered with wit and heart.Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781538776186
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Cardinal
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
For connoisseurs of speculative fiction who enjoy detailed worldbuilding.
In the near future, the world is run by WellCorp but all is far from well.
Stephens’ debut begins in “Zone 874, Pacific Ocean, 29 Days Post-Launch,” where we find one of our two heroines, Maggie, alone and afloat in a vessel called a WellPod, which is about to serve her a so-called latte made of mushrooms and root vegetables. "When Maggie could see the brown sludge that coated the bottom of the mug, she placed it back on the coaster, triggering its descent into the table at the same time her gratitude journal slid out from a lower compartment.” A passion for worldbuilding continues to drive this story of Lenses, Devices, Injectibles, Pohvees, WellNests, EarDrums, and much, much more as we go landside and meet Maggie’s live-in partner, Noa, who works at WellCorp’s Malibu campus, where she and Maggie have been assigned a high-tech apartment. With wildfires, earthquakes, and drought having wiped out most of the rest of California, volunteering for a Pod voyage was Maggie’s only option for getting out of town—and she really needs a break to figure out what to do about her unexpected pregnancy. Oops. In chapters dated by number of days pre- and post-launch, a complicated story unfolds. One has to do with corporate malfeasance and whistleblowing at WellCorp—were the Pods really ready to launch, and is there a major storm underway? Others involve infidelities and betrayals both past and present. It’s hard to keep up with which scary threat you’re supposed to be worrying about and which characters you’re rooting for—and the constant explanations and exposition dry up the juice. The novel is happiest when preparing and serving futuristic meals. “The hatch of her NutriStation opened and Maggie reached inside for her plate. The diagram projected through her Lens mapped out the baked coconut bacon, sun-yellow cherry tomatoes cooked in lab-grown avocado oil and coated in ancient grains aside tempeh topped with a dollop of collagen- and protein-fortified macadamia nut labneh.” Sounds better than the latte, anyway.
For connoisseurs of speculative fiction who enjoy detailed worldbuilding.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9781668034316
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
© Copyright 2026 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.
