An urban high school novel that puts humanity far ahead of sociology.
The shooting of an unarmed high school student in Chicago tripwires a series of disruptions and revelations involving police corruption and a Black teacher’s uneasy family life.
Buddy Mack is the kind of dedicated English teacher any public school would be lucky to have, especially in Chicago’s volatile South Side, whose Mayfield High enrolls many poor or at-risk students. Three of these kids especially concern Buddy: Zeke, who’s great at football, but not so great at staying out of trouble, whether it’s a pregnant girlfriend or detention; Dontell, whose unruly behavior camouflages a mind enabling him to “just look at a textbook and everything inside would download into his brain”; and Zeke’s cousin Truth, a moody, smooth-talking sophomore with relatives engaged in unsavory criminal activities. Buddy’s own life away from his job is almost as chaotic as his students’. He’s married to an ambitious corporate lawyer eager for upward mobility to the city’s posh North Side, even though Buddy’s not so sure he wants to leave Hyde Park behind. Buddy wrestles with the level of his commitment to his community in fitful discussions with his brother-in-law, Curtis, a corrupt patrolman who subdues his self-loathing with heavy drinking and resentment toward Buddy that borders on envy. The tangled lives of all these adults and teens converge in explosive fashion when Truth is shot by Curtis while carrying out a mysterious errand for one of his crooked relatives. The ramifications of that errand and its outcome have shattering effects on the seemingly disparate worlds of both Buddy and his students. Boyd’s impressive command of his engrossing novel’s multiple points of view is matched by his compassion for his often perplexing but always engaging characters. The novel’s heart and its smarts are almost as big as Buddy Mack’s own.
An urban high school novel that puts humanity far ahead of sociology.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781250348456
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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
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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