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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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