A captivating novel.
On the cusp of motherhood, a woman faces peril.
Annie is 37 weeks pregnant, shopping for a crib at IKEA, when suddenly she feels a terrible jolt, “a wave underneath me,” she thinks, “lifting me up.” An earthquake has hit Portland. In her assured debut novel, Pattee follows Annie through a horrific day: With wreckage all around her, she is intent on making her way to find her husband. She has miles to walk, it’s hot, she’s hungry and thirsty and afraid. She’s alone, and yet not alone, because she’s carrying a child, her precious Bean. “How did we get here, Bean?,” she asks. “You and me, IKEA, Monday morning, AISLE 8, BIN 31, hand on metal rack, eyes wide in fear, body tensed like a firecracker about to explode?” As she trudges across devastating landscapes—collapsed houses, bridges, and schools; supermarkets and convenience stores overrun by looters; bodies of the wounded and dead—Annie answers that question by beginning 17 years earlier, when she fell in love with Bean’s father, Dom, and they set out together to fulfill their dreams of becoming stars: she, a playwright; he, an actor. But Annie gave up writing, and Dom, while tirelessly auditioning, works at a cafe. Annie worries, as she walks, about their lack of money “to have a baby, much less feed a baby, much less house a baby, much less pay somebody to watch said baby.” She worries that they’ll never be able to afford a home of their own, with real estate prices ballooning. She worries about her ability for mothering, for being a “lifelong cheerleader” for her husband, and about realizing their dashed dreams. Recounting Annie’s precarious journey across the city and into her past, Pattee reveals that the quake has upended more than the earth.
A captivating novel.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781668055472
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
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