A story of family, healing, and the power of a really great accessory.
A young woman’s attempt to forge her own path leads her back to her family.
Celeste, Elodie, and Paulina Pavlin lead seemingly charmed lives. They are the three wealthy daughters of Alan, who owns and runs his family jewelry business. Pavlin & Co is credited with putting diamond engagement rings on the map, and its signature emerald green packaging is synonymous with love. (Sound familiar?) But when Alan decides—half for publicity, half on a King Lear–esque power trip—to award the prized Electric Rose diamond ring to the first of his daughters to get engaged, all hell breaks loose. Flash-forward 15 years: Paulina was the first to get married, but she and her husband are dead; their daughter, Gemma, a recent art school graduate with a passion for making jewelry more accessible to the masses, has no contact with the Pavlins. Elodie and Celeste have been feuding for years. Desperate to hold a showstopping auction of the family’s private jewelry collection as a way to bring Pavlin & Co back into relevancy, Elodie, now the company’s CEO, makes her way to Provincetown, where Celeste, long since cut off from the family money, has made a life for herself. Elodie tricks Gemma into joining her there because she needs both her sister’s and niece’s signatures to auction the collection. Gemma’s obsession with the Electric Rose (an obsession that wears on the reader very quickly), Celeste’s conviction that it’s cursed, and Elodie’s familial resentment lead to tense moments and attempts at amends. The book suffers from stilted dialogue, and the choice to make Gemma the emotional center of the novel was a misstep. That said, when Brenner leans into descriptions of the colorful characters of Provincetown and mines Elodie and Celeste’s fraught relationship, she makes up for many of the novel’s faults.
A story of family, healing, and the power of a really great accessory.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-08782-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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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