Tense, claustrophobic, and a bit hard to swallow.
When a girl frozen in ice at the Arctic Circle thaws out alive, an ancient Nordic languages specialist with troubles of her own is called to the scene.
Ferencik—author of Into the Jungle (2019)—specializes in thrillers set in wilderness environments with female protagonists; her latest takes us to the land of subzero temperatures and wind-whipped polar landscapes. But bad weather is just the beginning of the unpleasantness Val Chesterfield encounters when she overcomes her many phobias to fly out and help climate scientist Wyatt Speeks with his perplexing specimen. The girl he chopped out of the wall of a crevasse and defrosted is terrified, violent, and unintelligible. While Wyatt is creepy on many levels, creepiest of all is his unwillingness to discuss the death by exposure of his erstwhile lab partner, Val's twin brother, Andy. Andy's having gotten locked out of the house overnight in his underwear has been presented as a suicide, but neither Val nor her father, also a climate scientist, believe it. Belief is a problem all through this book—the elements made up to serve the plot rest on a foundation of real climate science, linguistics, and cultural history but still don't manage to be convincing. The five characters—Val, Wyatt, a nasty cook, and a pair of married marine scientists—are also less than lifelike. Saddled with mental health issues and bad manners, their interactions range from rude to abusive except for the married couple, who are so in love it's nauseating. You really wouldn't want to be stuck in a room with these people, which poor Val is much of the time, and now someone has stolen her anxiety meds and hidden the booze! She finds herself becoming deeply attached to the mystery girl, but progress with communication is slow, and the girl's health takes a drastic turn for the worse. And then they all go outside and things get crazy.
Tense, claustrophobic, and a bit hard to swallow.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9821-4302-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
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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