A lighthearted road novel that doesn’t shy away from the inherent darkness of vampire life.
In Parker’s horror comedy series starter, a novice vampire struggles to adjust to her new reality.
“Be steely.” That’s what Sugar Bernstein’s boyfriend Curtis always told her, and it’s advice that she needs more than ever, now that her life has been completely upended. Curtis is dead; Sugar’s no longer a Manhattan condo-dwelling ad executive with a penchant for shopping, wine, and mani-pedis; and her close-knit Jewish family is far away. Now, jobless Sugar both travels and resides in a Sprinter van, avoiding people and sunlight because she’s a vampire—the effect of a bite from Alexandria, also known as She-vil, a “vamp who lives on hate.” Alexandria constantly intrudes into Sugar’s dreams; while awake, Sugar struggles to feed herself by killing small animals. Also, her twin brother keeps trying to get her to attend his daughter’s bat mitzvah, which is inconveniently scheduled for the daytime. She does find some aspects of “V-life” more appealing: She lost a few pounds that she wanted to shed, and sometimes she manages to fly; when she falls, her broken limbs heal quickly. She also discovers a chain of RV parks that cater to an undead clientele, and that vampire sex is fantastic. Still, Sugar grapples with guilt—especially when it comes to her boyfriend’s untimely death at Alexandria’s hands. She’s increasingly aware that a possibly fatal showdown with Alexandria is inevitable. Over the course of the novel, Parker delivers a winning paranormal tale with quirky details. One fanged couple that Sugar meets, for instance, lives in a converted ambulance, and readers find out that even vamps care about gas mileage. Sugar is an inspired creation who’s relatable and quick-witted, and Parker excels at witty banter, especially between Sugar and her twin. Still, there’s an effective undercurrent of seriousness: Human companionship is off the table for Sugar, who’s forced to take lives to keep hers. The first person she deliberately kills is loathsome, but she can’t help but feel moral revulsion—and sadly, there’s no turning back.
A lighthearted road novel that doesn’t shy away from the inherent darkness of vampire life.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9798986205137
Page Count: 322
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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