In elegant prose, this deceptively quiet novel juggles big spiritual ideas with big social issues.
A young woman’s religious obsession affects those around her and highlights a tumultuous moment of great change for common people.
From childhood, Aleys, a woolmaker’s daughter in medieval Brugge, Belgium, seeks the divine, like her mother, who inherited a beautiful illuminated psalter. Although the saints’ stories were written in Latin, Aleys’ mother told them from memory in Dutch, giving her daughter dreams of hair shirts and pilgrimages. After the mother’s death in childbirth, Aleys joins the Franciscan friars at the behest of one Friar Lukas. He tasks her to live with an order of beguines—secular women dedicated to good works—and recruit some to become Franciscan nuns. However, she finds that the beguines have their own purposes, including a clandestine reading circle, leaving them with little desire for ecstatic spirituality. Aleys’ visions are well described but not parsed in modern terms like neurodiversity or mental illness. She heals a few sick and dying people but cannot save the beguines’ magistra, Sophia, from death. Katrijn, Sophia’s deputy—and, perhaps lover—casts Aleys out of the community. Lukas’s older brother Jaan, the bishop of Tournai, uses Aleys as a prop to convince townspeople of the church’s power. Confused by her unpredictable gifts, Aleys accepts Jaan’s offer to make her an anchorite. She’ll live in a sealed room attached to the church and never leave, gaining status as a holy woman. Even in strict confinement, Aleys has erotic visions of union with Jesus and Mary that echo the title’s reference to the Old Testament Song of Songs. Meanwhile, she teaches Marte, the beguine assigned to bring her meals, how to read and write, resulting in a showdown with an inquisitorial papal delegation. The ending might seem foregone, but author Rich Edwards has a twist or two in store, plus some stark examples of clerical corruption that are as relevant in the 21st century as they were in the 13th.
In elegant prose, this deceptively quiet novel juggles big spiritual ideas with big social issues.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781966302056
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© 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.
