Occasionally entertaining but still a work in progress.
A good witch is about to be very, very bad as she faces a meddlesome corporation in Neyman’s urban fantasy.
Sophie is a Sister, a witch in a world that doesn’t know witches exist but somehow relies on their help. Sophie is an idealist who often questions the limited way the Sisters offer their aid to the World of Men. Still, she follows centuries of Tradition passed down by her mother and grandmother and followed by her close-knit group of Sisters, who share a dorm as they attend an unnamed American college. Sophie is a history major with an interest in the Victorian era, which suits her considering that when she gets anywhere near modern technology, it malfunctions. Thankfully, she has her trusted umbrella for traveling by air, an old-school landline phone, and a typewriter for schoolwork and letters to her mom. Life is good. But when Benny, her prelaw boyfriend, discovers a plot to take over the world by a corporation called the Concern, he ends up falling victim to its devious plans in a tragic turn of events. Sophie finds herself torn between everything she has ever known and her need for justice. And as her powers grow, the young witch finds herself at odds with her Sisters, Tradition, and her own long-held beliefs. This short, snappy urban fantasy has quirky, fresh elements of witchery and an interesting arc for its protagonist. The writing, however, is at times vague and confusing, with abrupt transitions from one scene to the next. In addition, elements of the worldbuilding are insubstantial, including the contrived divide between the world of the Sisters and the World of Men. A sudden tone shift from funny to tragic causes whiplash, and the introduction of The Legion, a group opposing the Concern, seems too lightly drawn.
Occasionally entertaining but still a work in progress. (Urban Fantasy. 18-Adult)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-59-289252-3
Page Count: 135
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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