A well-written, au courant first novel that takes itself a bit too seriously.
With print journalism collapsing, a spirited young editor gets laid off from her cushy magazine job and finds herself slumming at a sleazy, National Enquirer-like website.
Francesca Miller, 29, is at a low ebb—after losing her position as features editor of Marie Claire, she can’t find work. She just broke up with her unfaithful boyfriend and is fast running out of cash. Her best friend, Audrey, sympathizes; but Audrey is rich and well-connected, and after losing her job, she lands at the New York Times. Then Frankie learns of an opportunity—night editor at a down-and-dirty online tabloid owned by Johnson News, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the Murdoch media empire. Desperate, Frankie signs on to The Scoop. It’s only temporary, she tells herself, because the editor-in-chief, David Brown, has promised that if she does well, she’ll be transferred to the company’s respected, Wall Street Journal–like newspaper, Business Day. (Hard to believe the savvy Frankie would fall for such a ploy, but never mind.) This debut novel—the title echoing Evelyn Waugh’s 1938 journalism satire, Scoop—is clever and fun, at least at first. The Australian-born author, a self-described “former journalist,” clearly knows the terrain; she delivers spot-on descriptions of tabloid excess (“a celebrity nip-slip on the red carpet was our equivalent of war breaking out in Europe”) and the travails of unemployed journos. But once Frankie gets entrenched at The Scoop—struggling to impress David with her scurrilous “scoops”—things take a turn. Frankie will seemingly stop at nothing to get the goods on 1990s pop-rock icon Amanda Myles. But Frankie’s involvement with Amanda deepens, and she begins to see, with increasing horror, the damage her tell-all stories are inflicting. As the novel veers from satire to melodrama—with some anti-press moralizing thrown in—it loses its spark.
A well-written, au courant first novel that takes itself a bit too seriously.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781538776339
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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