A well-told, entertaining story of dogs overcoming all odds.
A dog’s-eye view of a long-shot project to save a dog shelter.
Smith’s novel starts off with all the high tension of a professional dog meet. It’s the Eastminster International Dog Show, and the happenings are narrated by Elvis, an Airedale terrier (“the gentlemen dog of the terrier group”) and returning champion. He desperately wants to win this dog show because his Man needs the prize money in order to renovate and salvage the dog shelter where all of Elvis’ canine pals, especially one named Freddy, worship Elvis. They’re counting on him for their literal survival. The Airedale knows the pressure is on, but he’s confident of his chances—until his archnemesis (“she’s white, though her heart is black as onyx”), a standard French poodle named Chaussay, seems somehow to curse the chances of the other contestants in the show, arranging for each dog in turn to fail in their showing, leaving her and her snooty handler, Pierre, in possession of the prize—and sending Elvis home in the most bitter of defeats, certain that Chaussay’s treachery and his defeat have sealed the doom of his friends. There follows a long and fast-paced adventure full of plot twists in which not only do the shelter residents strive to right the wrongs of Chaussay’s schemes, but, surprisingly, they also strive to shine the spotlight on humble Freddy (“I always thought that was for ‘special dogs’ and that did not include me,” he thinks at one point, “I neverthought of myself as special”). Smith’s novel joins the ranks of other dog-narrated stories like Richard Adams’ The Plague Dogs(1977) and Donald McCaig’s Nop’s Trials(1984) in that he dispenses completely with sentimentality or predictability in order to tell a hero’s journey story in which the hero isn’t quite human. He manages humor and suspense with equal skill.
A well-told, entertaining story of dogs overcoming all odds.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-54-265678-6
Page Count: 283
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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