An artful and affecting novel of loss and reconnection.
A museum curator’s job in London forces her to confront an old heartache in Ward’s novel.
Noel Enfield has been stuck in her position as the Director of Collections at Massachusetts’ Field-Lyons Museum for years. She allowed her career to languish to give her full attention to her husband and stepdaughter, Alice. Now, just as her marriage is ending in divorce and her relationship with Alice is in doubt, Noel has received an offer: a six-month appointment at the renowned Addison Gallery in London, to be followed by a promotion when she returns to the Field-Lyons. She leaps at the opportunity—how could she not, especially when she learns her accommodations will be large enough for Alice to come visit? But London isn’t exactly a clean slate for Noel. She was a university student there, years ago, when she fell in love with Bryn Jones, a Welsh artist whom she planned to marry. The relationship ended soon after Noel discovered she was pregnant, and she retreated to America without a husband, a child, or her degree. Now, Noel’s position at the Addison has placed her at the center of the London art scene, where long-lost acquaintances from her university days—including the now-established Bryn—pop back into her life. It turns out the past is much more complicated than Noel ever knew, but will pursuing a chance at the family Noel might have had cost her the one she’s desperately fighting to save? Ward writes of art and the art world with precision and vigor, as here when she describes one of Bryn’s paintings: “The painting—unfinished—was of a lake…Bold strokes and varying thicknesses of paint suggested textured fields in the distance, remnants of snow on the mountains, red flowers—or were those lichens?—dotting the rocks lakeside.” The story deftly leaps back and forth between the early 1990s and the present, crafting a romance that, while predictable in places, always manages to hold the contented reader in the palm of its hand.
An artful and affecting novel of loss and reconnection.Pub Date: tomorrow
ISBN: 9798896360667
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
