A poignant romance in dire need of a firm editor’s hand.
A married English noblewoman looks back over her 17-year love affair with a younger man.
Hadlow’s fact-based historical novel begins with Harriet Bessborough, now 51, deciding to get over the heartbreak of her lover ending their relationship by rereading the hundreds of letters he sent her, hoping they will “illuminate the truth of what had passed between us.” Her devoted maid, Sally, advises against it, but she goes ahead. A sealed envelope inscribed “Naples, 1794” containing some dried herbs is the last of this framing device for more than 400 very leisurely pages, until Harriet announces, “And there, I suppose, my story stops.” In between, a straightforward first-person account chronicles breathtakingly handsome Lord Granville’s determined pursuit of Harriet, who, despite an unhappy marriage, holds out for a third of the novel’s length—far too long, given that readers already know she will succumb. After she finally gives way and discovers physical bliss she has never known with her husband or in a few previous desultory affairs, Harriet wallows in guilt and agonizes endlessly about the 13-year age difference she is sure will lead to Granville leaving her to marry someone younger. (Given her refusal to run away with him so her husband will divorce her and they can marry, this is pretty much a foregone conclusion.) Sharp thumbnail sketches of such real-life figures as Harriet’s husband, Lord Bessborough, and Regency-era social doyenne Lady Melbourne only occasionally alleviate the fatigue of a repetitive, minutely detailed exegesis of the tortured romance. Alternating Harriet’s overflowing tears and halfhearted attempts to stop seeing Granville with bouts of lovemaking followed by more guilt and recriminations, Hadlow’s well-written and carefully researched tale seriously outstays its welcome. It’s a pity, because the tender, rueful closing chapters almost make up for the unduly detailed narrative that precedes it.
A poignant romance in dire need of a firm editor’s hand.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781250129468
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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