An absorbing, restorative tale of community and nature.
An introverted animal lover gets drawn into an anti-development fight in this literary novel.
Lizzy isn’t the biggest fan of people, but she loves animals. An inveterate adopter of strays, she’s amassed a small herd of cats and dogs at her farmhouse. She’s just had to put down her favorite companion, her beloved basset hound, Happy. The death has consumed a lot of her emotional energy, leaving little left over to dedicate to the impending development of nearby Bartons Mill Pond. Russ Henderson, a friend from her activism-centered past, calls her, asking for help blocking the new homes planned for the pond, which abuts Lizzy’s property. “Lizzy, I know you hate the idea of a major subdivision out there,” he says. “Yes,” she responds, “but you also know I’ve given up fighting the world. It doesn’t budge.” Even so, Lizzy finds herself pulled into the cause as well as into the lives of two area boys: Jonas Meyers, a 16-year-old loner who loves to walk through the countryside, and Timmy Donohue, a 10-year-old paperboy struggling with questions of morality. These humans are slightly more complex than the critters Lizzy is used to dealing with, but is there a chance that their presence in her life can draw her closer to the world she’s written off? Silverfine’s prose is earthy and elegant, adept at animating both her characters and the natural world that captivates them. Here, Timmy comes across Jonas on the roadside and asks him what he’s looking at: “Without breaking his skyward gaze, Jonas replied, ‘The moon. And Venus.’ ‘I like when the moon is just a sliver, when you can barely see it but you know the whole moon is there. You can sort of see the dark part of the moon tonight. Venus is really bright.’ ” The story is well paced and the characters are deftly rendered, but it’s the sense of space that the author manages to embody—indoors and outdoors, country and town, and all the areas in between—that imbues the book with its alluring readability. The plot unfolds slowly and without much fanfare, yet readers will immediately be along for the ride—well, less a ride than a solitary stroll down a quiet country lane.
An absorbing, restorative tale of community and nature.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68433-821-4
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2021
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
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PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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