An all-too-plausible look at what the future might hold for the natural world and the people who strive to protect it.
In the not-too-distant future, two women working at the world’s last zoo form an electric bond as they work to save its endangered occupants.
Located on Alcatraz Island off the coast of San Francisco, in a world that’s rapidly falling apart due to irreversible climate change and a frighteningly believable fast-acting disease that killed untold numbers of animals and birds, is the world’s last remaining zoo. Lauded by the general public, ridiculed by resistance groups, and targeted by animal trafficking cartels, the zoo is home to birds of prey, jungle cats, farm animals, and an incredibly rare and important elephant named Titan. It’s also where Camille Parker—a rather unremarkable young woman who’s learned to keep her head down and prefers the company of animals to humans—both lives and works. Camille’s quiet, uneventful, animal-filled day-to-day schedule is upended when Sailor Anderson, an enigmatic zookeeper from Paris, arrives looking for work. Sailor is the opposite of Camille in every way, and while she’s familiar with the dangers that the outside world holds for the zoo and its occupants—animal or otherwise—she quickly butts up against the rigid rules of the place. The more time the women spend together, the more Camille finds herself drawn to Sailor. When word reaches them of a secret sanctuary that could provide freedom and safety for some of the zoo’s most prized animals, Camille must choose between the life she knows or take a risk on Sailor and the unknown that the outside world holds in store for them. Told in chapters that alternate points of view between the present as told by Camille and the past as told by Sailor, this novel is a moving and elegiac cautionary tale about the state of the world, and the beauty that we so often take for granted.
An all-too-plausible look at what the future might hold for the natural world and the people who strive to protect it.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781250329240
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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