A suspenseful but tender tale that exemplifies the power of intersectionality.
Themes of environmental justice, queer love, and Indigenous rights intersect in González’s mystery.
Mariana and Luisa Sánchez Celis grew up in a household with a mother disabled by a stroke, their uncle Alonso, and caretaker Amalia. The novel, set in 1990 and 1991, filters the events of the story through the colorism, racism, and patriarchy of their society as 22-year-old Mariana falls in love with Fernanda, an Indigenous Seri woman who’s passionate about protecting the turtles of the Sinaloa coast from extinction. After leaving Mexico to attend Juilliard, Mariana returns to find that Alonso has gone missing, and anti-poaching laws are harming local fisherman while industrial development hurts the wildlife and beaches. She, Luisa, Fernanda, and others start a business to preserve the livelihoods of locals while speaking up against powerful family friends. As the mystery of Alonso’s disappearance is resolved, a truth about Mariana is revealed. The second part of the novel focuses on Clavel Celis Coulson, Luisa and Mariana’s mother, as a high-society 16-year-old forced to marry a man twice her age; Amalia’s dark past also comes to light. The final part ties up a mystery while exploring themes of family conflict and queer relationships. González’s characters feel simultaneously archetypal and individual. On one level, they represent changing attitudes of various segments of Mexican society from the 1970s to the 2000s—enthusiastic, money-hungry land developers; an Indigenous conservationist; and an uncomfortable elite clinging to traditionalism. Yet the first-person perspectives of Mariana and Clavel showcase the specific desires, hopes, and dreams of each person as they try to find their place in a complex and dynamic social setting. González shines at exploring the effects of racist discrimination against Indigenous Mexicans without ever reducing characters to mere pawns. Her prose style is simple yet poignant and emotive, particularly when describing human desire and natural beauty: “Nothing relaxed me more than Bach combined with the aromas of the ocean and the sight of beauty. If only music could bend life to its rules.” González's closing notes provide the story’s critical real-world origins.
A suspenseful but tender tale that exemplifies the power of intersectionality.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-947976-31-3
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Cynren Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Everything you’d expect from Grisham, and this time something more.
After more than three decades of producing bestselling legal thrillers, Grisham tries his hand at a whodunit.
Eleanor Barnett wants Simon Latch to write her a will. That’s pretty much his job description, since practicing law in Braxton, Virginia, for 18 years hasn’t given him much opportunity to spread his wings. But the case of Netty, as she insists he call her, is different. She’s an 85-year-old widow whose second husband, Harry Korsak, left her with something like $20 million in cash and securities. She has a pair of stepsons, Clyde and Jerry Korsak, she’s determined to disinherit. And she already has a will, a document Wally Thackerman drafted a few weeks ago that basically allowed him, as Simon soon discovers, to pillage her estate. So instead of following his usual procedure and asking his longtime secretary, Matilda Clark, to type out the will, Simon types it himself and has it witnessed without saying anything to her. Of course he’d never do what Wally Thackerman did, but given his poverty, his gambling addiction, and his estrangement from his wife, Paula, whose income is a lot more stable than his own, he wouldn’t mind drawing just a bit on Netty’s wealth. As it happens, his new client turns out to be more trouble than she’s worth, maybe even more trouble than she would’ve been worth to Wally. And when she ends up dying, her death is swiftly identified as murder, with every indication that Simon killed her himself. The whodunit is unremarkable, but Grisham handles the legal complexities of the case with professional finesse and adds a wonderfully poignant portrait of a nothingburger lawyer trying his best to keep things more or less legal.
Everything you’d expect from Grisham, and this time something more.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780385548984
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.
A travel writer has one last shot at reconnecting with the best friend she just might be in love with.
Poppy and Alex couldn't be more different. She loves wearing bright colors while he prefers khakis and a T-shirt. She likes just about everything while he’s a bit more discerning. And yet, their opposites-attract friendship works because they love each other…in a totally platonic way. Probably. Even though they have their own separate lives (Poppy lives in New York City and is a travel writer with a popular Instagram account; Alex is a high school teacher in their tiny Ohio hometown), they still manage to get together each summer for one fabulous vacation. They grow closer every year, but Poppy doesn’t let herself linger on her feelings for Alex—she doesn’t want to ruin their friendship or the way she can be fully herself with him. They continue to date other people, even bringing their serious partners on their summer vacations…but then, after a falling-out, they stop speaking. When Poppy finds herself facing a serious bout of ennui, unhappy with her glamorous job and the life she’s been dreaming of forever, she thinks back to the last time she was truly happy: her last vacation with Alex. And so, though they haven’t spoken in two years, she asks him to take another vacation with her. She’s determined to bridge the gap that’s formed between them and become best friends again, but to do that, she’ll have to be honest with Alex—and herself—about her true feelings. In chapters that jump around in time, Henry shows readers the progression (and dissolution) of Poppy and Alex’s friendship. Their slow-burn love story hits on beloved romance tropes (such as there unexpectedly being only one bed on the reconciliation trip Poppy plans) while still feeling entirely fresh. Henry’s biggest strength is in the sparkling, often laugh-out-loud-funny dialogue, particularly the banter-filled conversations between Poppy and Alex. But there’s depth to the story, too—Poppy’s feeling of dissatisfaction with a life that should be making her happy as well as her unresolved feelings toward the difficult parts of her childhood make her a sympathetic and relatable character. The end result is a story that pays homage to classic romantic comedies while having a point of view all its own.
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0675-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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