A deep dive into the pain of separation and hope for reconciliation conveyed with grace, realism, and empathy.
In Hawthorne’s novel, a mother investigates her past and present to reconcile with her estranged daughter.
Alice Wilson receives an email from her ex-husband, Dan, announcing that their long-estranged daughter, Esme, has been arrested (“she doesn’t want to hear from you”). The news cracks open silent years of guilt and longing. A successful environmental financial analyst, Alice has lived with the ache of separation since Esme chose to live with her father. His manipulative charm and quiet vindictiveness fractured their family, leaving Alice adrift. Determined to uncover what happened, she plunges into an emotional investigation, contacting the police, catching up with Esme’s old friends, and confronting her own past actions. The narrative alternates between the present-day search and flashbacks that chart the disintegration of a marriage built on control and fear, as well as the mother-daughter bond that faltered under its weight. Themes of parental alienation, identity, and the long shadow of emotional abuse emerge; Alice’s pursuit of Esme begins as an effort to “rescue” her daughter from the arrest, but it gradually becomes a reckoning with her own complicity, pride, and capacity for forgiveness. By the time Alice and Esme begin to reconnect, the author has turned a story of estrangement into one of cautious hope and moral complexity. The novel explores the pain of mother-daughter estrangement with empathy and grounded realism. Hawthorne’s prose is clean and deliberate, emphasizing realism over melodrama. Her somewhat journalistic approach ensures that scenes of professional maneuvering regarding matters like green finance push the plot forward. The dual timelines are well managed, revealing the family’s history in increments that build emotional tension without resorting to sentimentality. Though the pace occasionally slackens, the story’s patient unfolding suits its subject: the slow, halting work of understanding another person. The author resists tidy resolutions, offering instead a nuanced portrayal of love stretched to its limits. The novel succeeds as both a psychological portrait and a social study, treating family estrangement with candor and quiet compassion.
A deep dive into the pain of separation and hope for reconciliation conveyed with grace, realism, and empathy.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2026
ISBN: 9781685136994
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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