A touching story of fortitude and grit set in the Gold Rush era.
Desperate to save his sweetheart’s family farm, a teen embarks on a grueling journey to pan for gold in Shapiro’s historical novel, set in the mid-19th century.
The instant Cole Thomas and Belinda Wright met as 11-year-olds, they shared a deep connection. Life hasn’t been easy for either of them. Cole’s widowed mother, the formidable Elizabeth, works tirelessly to keep their farm running, while Belinda (whom Cole affectionately calls “Blue” because of bright blue eyes) is regularly beaten by her older brother Tommy; her father’s a drunk, and her mother is detached. When Belinda’s dad dies, the family (which also includes Belinda’s two younger siblings, Alice and Buck) is faced with managing the debt-riddled farm. Months after Tommy’s latest assault leaves Belinda with broken ribs and an eye swollen to the “size of a crab apple,” he vanishes, leaving the farm unattended. This sets Cole’s gold-panning mission in motion. Departing on foot from New York and heading toward Oregon with his bacon-loving dog Tusk and a cart horse in tow, Cole suffers through arduous days and encounters a revolving cast of sex workers, thieves, and swindlers. (These characters add varying degrees of drama, but only a handful prove consequential.) It’s a relief when he meets Cyrus Ryerson, a Methodist pastor traveling with his family by wagon, and they invite him along. Enduring hunger, harsh elements, and a tragic death, Cole finally reaches his destination, but months of panning prove fruitless. Meanwhile, Tommy has returned, and the Wright farm is nearing collapse. Without a lucrative return—and soon—they’ll never survive. The author realistically captures the hardships and settings of a fascinating historical period. However, the writing, though serviceable, could use some tightening, as excessive exposition and drawn-out descriptions of farming and weather slow the pace. Momentum also lags as Cole spends long stretches alone on his journey. Heartfelt passages will appeal to romance readers (when Cole sees a willow tree “catching moonlight between its densely layered, cascading branches” it lovingly reminds him of Belinda’s hair), as will the satisfying, unexpected ending.
A touching story of fortitude and grit set in the Gold Rush era.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 235
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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