A powerful story of faith that celebrates love and rejects fear.
A New Age prophet takes on organized religion in Kushnir’s novel.
Martha, a 45-year-old accountant and former wartime field nurse in New York, sets out to prove that God is found in mercy, which flows not from heaven but from human hands. A “barefoot theologian,” she gives sermons in New York parks, making claims that challenge the very foundations of Christian faith. According to Martha, Jesus Christ was not crucified; she posits that the narrative about his crucifixion was modeled after the Egyptian god Osiris, who rose from the dead. (“He did not come to suffer. He came to heal suffering,” she says.) Her ideas threaten those in the religious establishment, especially one Pastor Smith, who grips his copy of the Bible like a sword. Martha questions centuries of dogma, not out of malice but out of love, wanting to help people appreciate the living Jesus. She finds an ally in Lucas, a New Testament professor at a seminary in Massachusetts, who helps her set up a temple in an abandoned warehouse to propagate her theology. There, she struggles to arouse a thirst for “freedom from the dictatorship of appetite” in the people who brand her as “a Christian Taliban”; how will she respond to allegations of blasphemy, homophobia, and transphobia? Kushnir’s conceit—telling this story as a “modern parable written in the language of the 21st century”—is an inspired approach, as Jesus Christ frequently employed the parable form in his teachings. The book’s framing of the body as sacred rather than sinful is convincing, but the plea for sexual restraint might seem outdated to readers who advocate for sex-positivity (Martha believes that sex is meant only for procreation, not pleasure). The book’s length and tendency toward repetition somewhat blunt the impact of the message and risk losing the reader’s attention.
A powerful story of faith that celebrates love and rejects fear.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9798262628599
Page Count: 335
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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