A summery read packed tight with quirky characters and their ongoing foibles.
A young veterinarian travels to a distant island to study tortoises and finds more than she’d bargained for.
In her latest novel, Segal has whipped together a fictional island, Tuga, “the size of an English county,” that is its own “miniature world, a British Overseas Territory…founded on the principles of compassionate collectivism by a series of deliberate arrivals, terrible calamities and happy accidents.” The book starts with a young research veterinarian, Charlotte Walker, sailing from London to Tuga for a fellowship to study the endangered gold coin tortoises native to the island. She gets off to a rocky start: There’s overwhelming seasickness, for one thing, and, for another, the handsome young doctor she meets on the ship turns out to be not quite as available as he’d first presented himself. But once Charlotte gets used to the “bugs and creepy crawlies and biting things, and the terrifying isolation and claustrophobia when all around the sea roiled and there was no way on or off, just water and sky and the purgatorial emptiness of that unbroken horizon,” she quickly finds herself falling in love with both the island and its inhabitants. As a reader, it’s hard to resist falling in love right alongside Charlotte. Instead of driving, island residents get around by catching a ride on a donkey; there’s also a single taxi driven by a man who calls himself “Taxi,” who also serves as the only radio announcer. Then there’s a pair of prepubescent best friends, Annie and Alex, who run roughshod over the island and whose devotion to each other is sweetly moving. Charlotte soon finds herself enmeshed in much more than she’d bargained for—including the mystery of her own paternity. If the book has any flaws, it’s that not every character has been fully fleshed out—some of the more minor personalities can seem a bit flat. But the primary joy of this delicious book is still in getting to know the island’s peculiar characters, whom Segal treats with a gentle, quirky sort of amusement.
A summery read packed tight with quirky characters and their ongoing foibles.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780063360457
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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