A familiar feel-good love story dressed in modest clothing.
A 29-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman is contending with her last hope for an arranged marriage when new possibilities allow her to hope for something more.
Ten years of bad first dates haven’t stopped Penina Kalish’s matchmaker from trying. Penina herself is stalwart, cajoling herself into meeting the increasingly unimpressive bachelors in public places and attempting to find a nice Orthodox man to marry. With 22,000 Instagram followers hungry for her modest yet sexy outfits each day, a job at a jewelry store, and an offbeat sense of humor, Penina is loath to complain about her predicament. “Maybe G-d was distracted the day He assigned soulmates, and accidentally skipped me,” she thinks. Despite her beauty and kindness, Penina ranks low on the marriageability scale because of her infertility. To Penina and her community, a woman unable to bear children is “missing the most important part of [her] womanhood. Like an ornate jewelry box that’s empty inside.” For that reason, when Penina is set up with a young, handsome, penthouse-dwelling man, she knows there must be a catch, and she’s right. Still, marriage to an affluent man would solve her family’s financial woes and would also help her avoid thinking too hard about Sam Kleinfeld, her secular boss at the jewelry store, and why her heart rate mysteriously doubles when he’s nearby. Penina wonders whether the satisfaction of her family and community is worth the sacrifice of her own happiness. In the time it takes her to decide, she spends more time with Sam, revealing her vulnerabilities and puzzling over his obvious interest in her. A slow burn is to be expected, but Penina’s naïveté turns the reader’s eagerness into impatience as the dim Hanukkah-candle chemistry just keeps burning and burning and burning. Though her community is obviously of central importance to her, Penina’s unquestioning commitment to her religious lifestyle is difficult to reconcile, both with the many obstacles it presents to her happiness and with the more regressive beliefs she asserts—the largely unremarked upon pregnancy of a 14-year-old cousin is difficult to overlook.
A familiar feel-good love story dressed in modest clothing.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781639103768
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Alcove Press
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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