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FROM I-80 TO GALWAY BAY

SEARCHING FOR AN EXIT

An often strong story of the grieving process.

In Christie’s debutnovel, two very different people form an unlikely bond after a tragic event.

Adam Connor is a middle-aged husband and father with graying hair and a lackluster job. When he sees a car wrecked on the side of the highway on Christmas morning, he feels compelled to stop and help the people inside—an intuitive decision that will change the course of his life. When 28-year-old Addie Harris wakes up a week later, she’s told that her husband, who was in the car with her, is dead and that a good Samaritan gave her CPR and saved her life. After she recovers, she decides to try to find the person who helped her in order to get closure and try to move on. Christie’s novel effectively highlights the different coping mechanisms Adam and Addie use after the traumatic event; Adam, who never had a drink in his life before the accident, develops alcoholism, and Addie, who’d been monogamous for many years, seeks solace in casual sex. This novel deals with how the characters move through the stages of grief, from denial to acceptance. But will they ever be able to forgive themselves? Christie’s tale features some generic components of mysteries and thrillers, but its plot offers several surprising twists. Its main theme, however, is how one copes with tragedy and learns how to live again, as shown in Adam and Addie’s separate arcs. They’re not always likable people, and although they have their flaws, Christie manages to make them both sympathetic. The text jumps between the main players’ third-person perspectives and also provides insight into secondary characters along the way. It’s not always satisfying in its characterization, though; one character close to Addie, for instance, starts out as a villain and seems to grow into a better person later on––only to become a villain again. This narrative choice has the effect of inhibiting Addie’s progress as well, as she’s never given the chance to forgive or even understand this person.

An often strong story of the grieving process.

Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-9862898-7-3

Page Count: 413

Publisher: Gracehill Press

Review Posted Online: March 24, 2021

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MY FRIENDS

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.

Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

Pub Date: May 6, 2025

ISBN: 9781982112820

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

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BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

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Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).

In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

Pub Date: June 10, 2025

ISBN: 9781250320520

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

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