An intriguing pair of plots about women’s reproductive rights starts off strong but goes astray.
A contemporary woman’s quest to have a baby is interwoven with a historical legal case about involuntary sterilization.
In the present day, the narrator is Jessa Gidney, a young lawyer at a Manhattan law firm who lives in a posh Upper East Side apartment with her husband, Vance, a hunky finance guy. Sounds pretty sweet, but Jessa’s growing obsession with getting pregnant and her ongoing failure to do so are putting massive strain on her job and marriage. Orphaned when her parents died in a car crash, she was raised by her doting grandmother and feels driven to continue the family line. When she takes on a pro bono case helping Isobel Pérez, an undocumented immigrant, avoid deportation, she learns that while in detention her client was surgically sterilized without giving consent—and Isobel isn’t the only one. The book’s historical plot focuses on Carrie Buck, a real person who in 1927 was the plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell. Carrie was born to a single mother, grew up in poverty, and had little education. After she was raped as a teenager, she bore a daughter who was immediately taken from her. She became a test case for a Virginia eugenics law that allowed the state to sterilize “promiscuous” or “feebleminded” women, with or without their consent. The court ruled the law was constitutional, and the eugenics theories it was based on became a foundation for the Holocaust. As Jessa passionately pursues Isobel’s case, she learns shocking secrets, some too close to home. For the first part of the book, the interlinked stories, the abuses of the women in the detention center, and the women’s engaging voices make a compelling combination. But in the last portion, the stories of Carrie and the immigrants drop into the background and Jessa takes over. Some of her successes, though, are unconvincing, and the plot ends up with too many loose ends.
An intriguing pair of plots about women’s reproductive rights starts off strong but goes astray.Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781400347308
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper Muse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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