A slim but often effective coming-of-age story set in a Micronesia of long ago.
Knight delves deeper into the origin story of his heroic Micronesian mariner in this third historical novel in a series.
Before his Odysseus-like sea journeys began, Ḷainjin was an infant in the arms of his surrogate mother, Helkena, on the storm-swept rocks of Wōtto Atoll in the Rālik island chain (now part of the Marshall Islands). As this story opens, his birth mother, the trader Tarmālu, has just departed the atoll with her sailors, hoping to move their fleet of canoes out of the path of a typhoon. The storm arrives and destroys Helkena’s house, but she and the baby manage to survive by taking shelter in a tree. Tarmālu doesn’t return after the storm, and Helkena is unsure of her fate; the latter does receive two visitors from Tarmālu’s native island of Naṃdik, however—one of whom is Japeba, the grandfather of the baby Ḷainjin. The men want to raise Ḷainjin on Naṃdik, and they want Helkena to come and help them. She agrees, hoping that, while she’s there, she can get her “lines”—the traditional tattoos of mature women—as well as a husband to bring back with her to Wōtto. Helkena is already a mother of sorts, but she’s about to embark on a journey through the complex, environment-dictated customs of Rālik womanhood. Knight’s prose is even and evocative, speckled with Rālik words that effectively help to shape the world of the novel: “The old mariner claimed he felt the island’s presence in a swell called buñtokiōñ, which fell from the north. He spent quite a bit of time trying to point it out to [Helkena], but its presence was too subtle for her to detect.” Knight’s interests are perhaps more anthropological than they are literary, but his fictional world is so immersive that readers won’t mind the relative flatness of the characters. It’s a short novel, barely longer than a novella, but the landscapes it inhabits are epic in scale.
A slim but often effective coming-of-age story set in a Micronesia of long ago.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-77180-586-5
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Iguana Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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