An engrossing and humane novel.
Prose meets power in a tale of Machiavelli and Borgia.
In 1502, the Republic of Florence is surrounded by enemies, particularly Cesare Borgia, who is the Duke of Valentinois and Romagna and son of the Pope. The Republic sends Niccolò Machiavelli as both envoy and spy to find out what Borgia, nicknamed Valentino, is up to. This is a most dangerous business, as rumors abound regarding the duke’s cruelty. He denies to Machiavelli that he had his own brother killed, for example, but doesn’t mind at all that people think so, as long as they fear him. “Fear is stronger than all cannons,” he says. And he even has his own private executioner. Valentino recognizes Machiavelli’s talent as a writer and proposes that the envoy write his story: “I will tell you all my secrets, and you will give them shape with words,” making sure to include “details, observations, insinuations, and malice.” Meanwhile, the duke has imprisoned and sexually abuses Dianora Mambelli, whose “beauty is her condemnation.” Machiavelli secretly meets with her and learns that she wants her captor dead. But if their growing friendship becomes more than platonic and Cesare finds out, their lives are imperiled. The novel paints Machiavelli in a sympathetic light: Yes, he is a skilled writer who puts the duke’s deeds into fine prose, exaggerations and all. But he is in a difficult position where he could be killed at any time. Late in the story, Cesare expresses satisfaction: “Now that I know you can write it the way that I want, I will let you live.” The eventual product of this whole messy business comes after the deaths of the main characters, and it lives on today as The Prince, as cynical a book about gaining and keeping raw power as any that exist. Although Machiavellian refers to scheming for power, the poor guy was only the messenger who was disgusted by his boss and at his mercy. There are quite a few brief passages in Italian, mainly snippets of poetry, with translations in the endnotes. Luckily, they aren’t critical to the story’s flow. Se leggi l’italiano è perfetto. But if you don’t read Italian, you won’t lose the thread by skipping over them and checking them out later.
An engrossing and humane novel.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9798889660149
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
