An atmospheric, idiosyncratic glimpse of contemporary female lives.
A child’s abduction highlights the gulf separating the lives of the two women who care for her.
In her English-language debut, Brazilian writer Madalosso delivers a story from the alternating perspectives of two women. Maju begins. She’s a maid to Fernanda and Cacá in São Paulo and nanny to their 4-year-old daughter, Cora, and she’s about to kidnap the little girl. Age 44 and childless herself, Maju has spent a lifetime working in the homes of other families; she had a boyfriend for a while, but forfeited that relationship to her work and is essentially alone. Now, she’s taking Cora on a road trip which will go increasingly awry. Fernanda relies on Maju’s labor to pursue her own career in television—which supports the family and its comfortable lifestyle—and also an absorbing affair with a female lover while her marriage seems to be fading. The women’s voices are alternately indulgent and urgent. The novel is short yet it ranges widely, from Amazon forests to love motels, from taking the hallucinogen ayahuasca to filming alligators. But it returns constantly to its central preoccupations, class and womanhood, the latter considered broadly to include sex after child-bearing, an anthropological scrutiny of female bonobo monkeys, depilation, and the anxious preoccupations of mothers everywhere. Madalosso’s style is modern, fractured, vivid in its devotion to inner fears and fantasies yet open-ended. Fernanda and Maju’s standpoints may be far apart, but both love Cora intensely and both are marked by unsatisfied expectations. Nor does the book resolve them—rather it draws a scenic portrait of contemporary lives and leaves its characters to resume after the pages conclude.
An atmospheric, idiosyncratic glimpse of contemporary female lives.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781609459802
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
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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