An impressively researched but emotionally unengaging historical novel.
In Hirschmann’s debut historical novel, a young sailor contends with a dangerous captain on a voyage to Alaska.
The Eclipse sets sail from Boston in 1801, heading out into an ocean still dominated by the British Navy, who are only too happy to conscript American sailors into their war against Napoleon. Eclipse captain Jonathan Fletcher is young and brash, and his 11-man crew is even younger. Second Mate Joshua Hall distrusts the captain’s recklessness, but like First Mate Micah Triplett, Joshua is obligated to follow the captain’s orders, even when he disagrees. Besides, Joshua must focus on his true reason for signing on with the voyage, beyond merely acquiring otter pelts in the Pacific Northwest to sell in China: He’s investigating the fate of another ship, captained by his rebellious brother, Elias, that disappeared along the northwest coast the year before. After two sailors are lost in a storm while rounding Cape Horn, the crew takes on replacements in Hawaii—despite the taboo against such things, the recruits include Fletcher’s and Triplett’s Hawaiian paramours. To be fair, the women as skilled sailors, particularly Fletcher’s “wahine,” Alamea. It’s under these fraught conditions that the Eclipse arrives on the shores of Alaska, where the dangerous fur trade is pursued by competing Russian trappers, powerful Indigenous clans, and conniving British and American crews. Joshua’s rescue of a young slave from captivity wins him Alamea’s affection, which he cannot help but return: “Her graceful presence and manner only added to an overpowering, if not disquieting attraction that he was beginning to realize could never be defeated, only contained, though for how long he was uncertain.” However, Fletcher’s increasingly erratic behavior must be contended with if Joshua hopes to find his brother or make it back to Boston alive.
The author, a history professor, is well acquainted with the conditions of the time, and his text is rich with wonderful period details, as when the crew of the Eclipse prepares to trade for pelts with the Haida people of Prince of Wales Island: “Further down the deck, Lavelle Clark prepared his blacksmithing forge, ready to accommodate any villagers’ requests to make or refashion copper and iron goods. Kekoa held two young white and orange cats high on his shoulders to catch the eyes of otter pelt-owning villagers desiring a pet.” Hirschmann succeeds in communicating the harshness of the era through the youth of the sailors, their distance from home, the general lawlessness of the time, and the ruthless exploitation of local populations. Stopovers in remote places like the Juan Fernandez Islands drive home the far-flung geography of the Age of Sail. The author displays less skill when it comes to crafting personalities to populate this world; Joshua’s pat heroism is neither compelling nor terribly believable. The other characters are just as thin, including the native Hawaiians and Tlingits sailing with the crew. It’s a shame, as the reader is curious to see the effect such harrowing conditions—battles, storms, duels, months at sea—would have on people of diverse perspectives. An impressively researched but emotionally unengaging historical novel.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781684920518
Page Count: 286
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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