Two thumbs up for action, suspense, and lust.
The opening of a major film festival goes off script when the CEO’s former husband and his half brother—her current lover—go missing.
In Walsh’s suspenseful debut about the politics, pressure, and glamour behind the scenes of an international film fest, Jane Browning pole-vaults from artistic director to acting CEO of a famous Canadian Film Festival after allegations of sexual wrongdoing sideline the organization’s head. Problems plague the festival: A sponsoring Asian country wants veto power over the screening of a documentary critical of its government, and a hotel maid accuses a famed director of assault, landing him in jail instead of on the red carpet. Jane’s partner of seven years, Bob Walker-Smythe, doesn’t show on the festival’s opening night, and he fails to answer his cell. The previous month, Bob’s half brother Johnnie, who’s Jane’s ex, went AWOL. After Johnnie and Jane had called it quits, she hooked up with Bob (the “sexual tension was exquisite”), and the three of them are now business partners in Smythe Financial, a midsize firm. Her festival a madhouse and her lover missing, Jane’s life is complicated further when the Ontario Securities Commission announces there’s major money missing from Smythe Financial. Tension becomes palpable when Jane realizes someone is stalking her. The title of this taut, thrilling literary novel, written by a former film producer, refers to a camera technique in which the focus adjusts from one character to another. Similarly, the reader’s focus changes from one of Jane’s worsening problems to another. She imagines her varying situations as a filmmaker would. For example, after typing an address into her phone’s GPS, she follows the route on the screen, “watching the journey as a director might: a long establishing shot of a city neighborhood, circuitous jungle of one-way streets, dead ends, and glass towers.” There are rich descriptions throughout; for example, a woman “vibrated with triumph,” and a man’s flesh was as cold as imagined, “although also sweaty, which was an unwelcome surprise.”
Two thumbs up for action, suspense, and lust.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1770415799
Page Count: 272
Publisher: ECW Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
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