Despite some haunting scenes, a frustrating read.
An interactive haunted house is the proving ground for several self-deluded characters.
From the outset of this novel, set in Lincoln, Nebraska, circa 1997, we know that Leonard, a 37-year-old hotel manager, is on trial for murdering Bryan, a participant in a staged horror experience. Excerpts from the trial transcript and chapters named for the "cells" marking the progress of the deadly game create a structure for this study of misplaced and/or unrequited love. John is the impresario and puppet master of Quigley House, a “full-contact haunt” that has attracted a nationwide though decidedly niche fan base. Kendra, a new Quigley employee, is a 15-year-old girl still reeling from her father’s recent death. Playing on her neediness, John manipulates Kendra into persuading her cousin Bryan to join a team that will endure increasingly grisly challenges in hopes of winning $60,000. The other team members are Jaidee, a Thai exchange student at the University of Nebraska; Victor, who was his English teacher in Thailand; and Jane, Victor’s fiancee. Jaidee, who came to Nebraska to find Victor, who he thinks left coded love messages on his homework assignments, is also Bryan’s roommate. Although participants in Quigley House tours often end up with minor injuries and PTSD, the experience is not supposed to be life-threatening. Danger can always be averted by uttering the safe word, reprieve. Not this time, though, and the true mystery here is why? This is a worthy attempt at a complex psychological thriller, but it fails to stick its landing. The characters’ motivations are often opaque, and their behavior sometimes defies logic, particularly when life-altering decisions are at stake. The plot developments building to the climax will occasion much head-scratching.
Despite some haunting scenes, a frustrating read.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-307991-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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