A subtle story of family, friendship, strong women, and the hopeful side of technological advancement.
An intergenerational SF saga in which a dying wealthy woman bears her responsibilities soberly with the help of an artificial intelligence.
In an alternate version of 2018, 61-year-old Samantha Rain, a self-made millionaire, is a sociable and multitalented investor. When she receives a diagnosis of incurable cancer that gives her only a few months to live, she takes solace in Sam, a highly advanced artificial intelligence for which she served as a model. Her late father, Moshe Rainewicz, who changed his name to Michael Rain, tells his story of pain and survival through a series of interviews with the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., which reveal a side of the man that he kept hidden from his daughter. Samantha’s own daughter, Grace, is an accomplished architect in Chicago whose firm is struggling to stay in business, due primarily to the refusal of a high-profile client to pay them for a project. In flashbacks, Grace navigates marital problems, the follies of raising teenage daughters with wayward streaks, and a time-consuming career that left her exhausted at the end of every day. In this novel, Lawrence meticulously crafts a century of personal histories and daily routines, and he develops a cast of characters who, despite their elite social statuses, are consistently sympathetic and relatable. Certain interactions, such as that between Michael and his interviewer, feel overly staged and stodgy. Overall, however, the plot billows and falls with an unforced realism that, for the most part, doesn’t get caught up in overemphatic prose or melodrama. As Samantha and technological marvel Sam converse—and as Grace interacts with the AI—readers are carried along on a breezy thought experiment tackling the insecurities and unexpected comforts to be found in the connection between human and computer. Fortunately, no heavy-handed dystopian robot uprising swoops in to set the world afire.
A subtle story of family, friendship, strong women, and the hopeful side of technological advancement.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73770-001-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Christmas Lake Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
PERSPECTIVES
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