An incisive novel about relationships, both of the organic and paid-for varieties.
In Morel’s novel, an Estonian man signs up to be a paid companion for women, unaware of the impact the job could have on his relationship.
In Tallinn, a man named Toomas begins a new gig working as a paid companion for a company that has very strict rules. He’s not a sex worker; his job is to accompany women who are lonely, unsure, or maybe need a date for a company function. There are women contractors who are making a lot of money at this company, but Toomas has just three or four clients. He also has a girlfriend, named Annika. Toomas used to work in marketing but now is freelancing, while Annika has a corporate gig that keeps her busy. She knows what he’s doing, and she has plans for herself—she’s outgrowing Estonia and wants to move to Berlin. The move could mean big changes for Toomas, since he could work in marketing in Germany, but he has his reasons for staying. His clients include Karin, whom he really wants to kiss, but it’s against policy; Eliise is intriguing, and he obviously likes her; and then there’s Helene, an elderly woman who’s seeking human connection. Toomas can’t help but feel like his worth is being determined by a website and its algorithm, with its constant demand for feedback. He must determine the trajectory of his life while confronting the facts that Tallinn isn’t all that big and that Annika may be leaving. Morel’s concise novel is well paced; the language is spare, but the ideas she explores are complex. The author places Toomas in a compelling context—he’s become stalled in life, but he’s rich in the number of interesting people surrounding him. Morel plainly and perceptively discusses the ways in which technology affects contemporary relationships, going beyond a simple account of juggling multiple people. Vivid details about the setting add color (“wasn’t that why Estonians had so many sayings about saunas?”), with characters feeling tied to the place while also being pulled away by various forces.
An incisive novel about relationships, both of the organic and paid-for varieties.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9789730441819
Page Count: 163
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
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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