A convincing and oddly enjoyable novel about an unenviable and convoluted legal process.
Settling a large family estate takes an enormous toll on its unfortunate executor in this novel by Shelley.
Tim Watts, the eldest son in the melodramatic Watts family, has been named executor of his late mother Holly’s estate. Holly Suter Hampton was a grande dame, a drama queen, and a manipulator (not to mention a hoarder), forever guilting her sons in a passive aggressive way. Those sons are Tim, Matt, and Ethan. Tim is a rock and a peacemaker. Matt found the love of his life in his husband, Isaac. Embittered Ethan has always felt himself an outsider in the family, and he lets everyone know. (Jeff, the youngest, was everyone’s favorite and died a hero, saving a co-worker from falling.) We follow the beleaguered Tim as he deals with mountains of paperwork related to the estate and all that comes with it, all while tolerating his insensitive boss and his annoying brothers ("What is the proper etiquette for poking your brother in the eye?" he asks at one point.) In what almost feels like a coda, we learn more about why Ethan became devoutly religious, and there are hints of genuine tragedies in his life: We finally see him as more than just a world-class kvetch. Shelley proves himself to be an exceptional novelist, creating believable characters—especially Tim and his sour younger brother, Matt. And he really makes us feel the draining slog of dealing with all the legal documents (and the interminable waiting on “hold”), the drudgery of cleaning out an overstuffed old house, and making painful decisions about mountains of stuff. (Collections that Holly—and the family—assumed to be priceless are now worth pennies on the dollar.) We cheer at the end when Tim tells off his tyrannical boss, and we get a satisfying counterpoint when Tim’s father-in-law dies, having meticulously arranged his affairs to make it as easy as possible for his daughter to settle his estate.
A convincing and oddly enjoyable novel about an unenviable and convoluted legal process.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781735497419
Page Count: -
Publisher: TENZL
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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