An engaging Homeric tale of a man’s island-hopping quest to find his mother.
A historical novel offers an episode in the life of a Micronesian mariner.
Ever since he was a small boy, Ḷainjin heard tales about his long-absent mother. The story goes that Tarmālu led her fleet of valuable proa boats away from the island of Rālik to keep them from being destroyed in a storm, and neither she nor her proas were ever seen again. Since he’s been old enough to search for her, Ḷainjin has done just that, sailing his canoe from island to island, looking for news of any survivors from her fleet. Now he’s attempting his most ambitious mission yet: a multiday voyage to the far island of Pohnpei, accompanied by no one except his pet bird, the Chief. There, a new friend, Ewalt, takes him to the magnificent stone village rising from a reef just off the coast. “To view these massive, angular shafts emerging from the water was to worship them in awe at their grandeur,” thinks Ḷainjin. “Surely, this was the center of the ocean. Surely, this was the apex of his water world.” In the village, Ḷainjin hears of the Seekers, four survivors from Rālik who work for the lord of Pohnpei, scavenging large logs from the sea. He also hears of his mother’s capture by cannibals on the distant island of Papua. Can Ḷainjin convince the Seekers to help him discover his mother’s fate? In this prequel to Man Shark(2019), Knight’s prose displays a detailed knowledge of Micronesian culture, architecture, and seafaring techniques: “They glided swiftly across the reef toward the landing, sinking through the shallow troughs and rising on the whitecapped swells that rolled past them and crashed ahead into the entangled mangrove swamp on their right and the rocky shore to the fire-flicked village on the left.” The book takes its time getting started, and the author does not always provide the full context for everything (though he does offer footnotes explaining the frequent Micronesian words). But the novel’s mindset is so thoroughly pre-modern that readers can’t help but be swept up in Ḷainjin’s journey, learning to appreciate the poetry of the atolls, reefs, woods, stones, boats, and even the myriad types of waves.
An engaging Homeric tale of a man’s island-hopping quest to find his mother.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-77180-508-7
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Iguana Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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