A gentle, engaging, and heartfelt tale of family secrets and emotional closure.
In this debut novel, a man returns to his childhood home to unravel a vexing family mystery.
Australian journalist Chilton’s tale is a family-centric affair chronicling the life of Liam Murray, a city dweller from a small Aussie village who has lost his footing in the urban jungle. He attempts to fill the unhappy void with sleep, work, and, perhaps most dangerously and desperately, a torrid affair with Hannah, his married upstairs neighbor. Though tragic, the news of his mother’s sudden diagnosis of breast cancer spurs Liam to quit his dead-end job and move back to Elanora, his hometown. There, he feels most needed and wanted, though the memory of his father’s disappearance two decades prior still haunts him. He was just a boy when his father went fishing by himself and only the charred remains of his boat returned. Reuniting with childhood friends and caring for his mother (who’s started seriously dating again) fill his days at home, while memories of fishing and oyster hunting with his father permeate his mind. Stubbornly overwhelmed by open emotional wounds, Liam determinedly resolves to dig deeper into why his father disappeared. Was he depressed and suicidal when the family lost its second child, Annie, in the womb? What starts as a ransacking of his father’s old shed soon turns serious, and dark, personal secrets and a messy, hidden life are uncovered. If the story meanders a bit too leisurely for some readers, Chilton’s vibrant and smoothly lyrical prose more than makes up for a rather slack plot. Her consistent use of similes is also an appealing and effective touch: Female workers rushing through city streets on their ways to work have high heels sounding “like the start of rain,” and Liam’s childhood bedroom gives him an unsettling feeling, “as if it was he who had disappeared without a trace as a child, not his father.” Determined to live unencumbered by the past, Chilton’s characters yearn for love, understanding, and some semblance of a resolution. Combining lush details of the Australian landscape with players who draw readers in with humble hearts, this is a stirring first novel.
A gentle, engaging, and heartfelt tale of family secrets and emotional closure.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-00-515025-9
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett has been shot plenty of times before. But this time may be the last.
As Joe hovers between life and death in a Billings hospital, Box indicates that Dorn Peddy and James Dale O’Bryan are the two men who ambushed him, shot him, and left him for dead. But he doesn’t reveal who hired them or why. That’s left up to Joe’s three daughters: bird-abatement firm chief executive Sheridan, Bozeman private eye April, and University of Wyoming undergrad Lucy. Since the man who reported the incident to the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department has disappeared, the most that newly appointed Sheriff Steve Sondergard can do is to warn Sheridan and her sisters away from the case. But the fact that both the shooters and the witness seem to have come from one of exactly three places presents an obvious appeal to the younger Picketts, who plan to each visit one place and question the owners simultaneously before they can warn each other that anyone’s coming. The only problem is that all the possible suspects—billionaire Michael Thompson and his wife, Brandy, of the Double Diamond Ranch; ranchers John and Shelby Bucholz, of the Bucholz Cattle Company; and secretive sisters Lisa and Lainie McElwee, of McElwee Land and Cattle Ranch—act equally guilty. As Box unspools a series of flashbacks showing what Joe was up to in the weeks before the ambush, one question assumes paramount importance: Can Joe’s daughters identify which of them is behind the plot to murder their father before the hired gunmen visit the hospital and try again?
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593851098
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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