This absorbing historical novel showcases a real-life female hero braving hostility and oppression.
A Roman empress fights to influence her emperor husband in this third installment of Justice’s series.
Shortly after losing her beloved father, Greek-born adolescent scholar Athenais leaves for Constantinople to live with an uncle and aunt. They treat her like a daughter, but her uncle and her two older brothers have another reason for wanting her in the imperial capital: The men hope Athenais will marry 19-year-old emperor Theodosius. His older sister, Pulcheria, an Augusta (empress), effectively ruled when Theo was a minor and maintains an “iron grip” that Athenais, as the emperor’s wife, may be able to soften. After Theo and Athenais wed and celebrate their first child’s birth, Athenais is elevated to Augusta. But despite her imperial power, she can’t overcome Pulcheria’s influence, as Theo rarely makes a decision without his sister’s advice (“You can whisper in his ear in bed, but if Pulcheria has breath, she will fight you for his love”). Soon, Theo’s stubbornness and devout Christianity (he believes lust for his wife is sinful) adversely affects the couple. Athenais struggles to lead any sort of life, personal or political, free from Pulcheria’s interference. Justice’s follow-up to the Pulcheria-centric Dawn Empress (2020) centers around an admirable, engrossing historical figure; Athenais bravely endures hardships and confronts moral dilemmas (as a pagan, she reluctantly converts to Christianity for her marriage; as a noble, she isn’t allowed to breastfeed her own child). The female characters truly shine, from Placidia, another Augusta whom Athenais befriends, to Pulcheria, who (from Athenais’ perspective) comes across as both a vindictive in-law and a protective sister. This story, which smoothly transitions the protagonist through passing years, effectively details her increasingly dire circumstances as Theo seemingly pushes her away and others threaten her life and her loved ones. But even as Pulcheria thwarts many of her attempts at political maneuvering, devoted mother and empress Athenais reveals her strength in myriad ways.
This absorbing historical novel showcases a real-life female hero braving hostility and oppression.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2024
ISBN: 9780917053320
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Raggedy Moon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.
And now for some lessons in poetry and typesetting.
After Lessons in Chemistry (2022), a debut that became one of the most popular books of recent years, Garmus applies her unique comic sensibility to the story of Batter Gray, a man named after a family dog of mythic talents. A poetry maven who was reading Auden as a fourth grader, he was raised by a type-designer mother and historian father who dearly hoped he would choose some more viable profession than poetry. But via an amazing stroke of luck, he lands a job after college at Peck & Peck, an illustrious literary journal located in a beautiful building in New York City. He’s at the very bottom of the complex and dysfunctional totem pole, making copies in the basement, struggling not to run afoul of the cantankerous editor-in-chief, Salton Peck, or his smarmy assistant, Dexter York, both of whom have taken an instant dislike to our hero (and can never get his name right. Few people can). And to be honest, Batter is not without his flaws. The novel bogs down a bit in the middle, with Salton constantly excoriating his staff in ALL CAPS and much ado over the possibility that submissions have been taken outside the building, which is forbidden. Along the way, many, many famous poets are name-checked, as are many typefaces, since Batter has been raised to instantly identify a font in the wild. The best example of this occurs during his brief sojourn in jail: “The thing I kind of admired about Motherfucker II, besides his manners, was this huge tattoo he had on his neck that read I will fuck you up in ITC Bolt. Call me my mother’s son, but whoever inked it nailed the kerning.” The narrative picks up steam toward the end, as bad guys become good guys, mysteries are solved, and Batter throws one hell of a party.
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781668251065
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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