Not quite on the level of Donoghue’s very best work but nonetheless a treat for her many fans.
An ill-at-ease schoolgirl at a 19th-century boarding school finds love with her swashbuckling roommate.
In the latest of her fact-based historical novels, Donoghue strikes an unabashedly romantic, dreamlike tone with an opening line deliberately evocative of Rebecca. “Last night I went to the Manor again,” Eliza Raine writes to her former lover, Anne Lister, a decade after the two met in 1805 as teenage students at King’s Manor in York. Sent from Madras to England at age 6, the product of a “country marriage” between an Indian woman and an East India Company employee, Eliza is painfully aware of how her brown skin and illegitimacy mark her out among her privileged classmates even though her father’s death has left her heir to a modest fortune. She does her best to be the perfect student—until Lister arrives and is placed in her garret room. Self-confident, rule-breaking Lister both fascinates and frightens Raine, from her insistence that they call each other by their surnames like schoolboys to her casual disrespect for the teachers. Yet Raine comes to relish the spirit of adventure her new friend has brought into her life, and eventually the two embark on an ecstatic physical relationship. The story of the girls’ deepening bond is told in third-person chapters interspersed with Raine’s anguished letters to Lister, in which it quickly becomes clear that at age 24 Raine has been confined for some time to an asylum. We don’t know why until the very end, but it’s clear in the school chapters that her growing sense of self-worth is bound up in her love for Lister and might not survive their parting. Donoghue draws a wonderfully rich portrait of boarding school life, both a mirror of the outside world’s social hierarchies and a hothouse of complex interactions among girls striving to become women. As always, her narrative is grounded in sharp observation, strong characters, and nice period detail. She also tenderly evokes passion between two young women, though Raine’s perpetual insecurity and timidity eventually become as wearying for the reader as we suspect they may have for Lister.
Not quite on the level of Donoghue’s very best work but nonetheless a treat for her many fans.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9780316564434
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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