A superbly developed cast fuels this suspenseful tale, brimming with romance and vicious creatures.
In Dutary’s YA urban fantasy novel, a teen searching for her kidnapped friend unearths a secret world of mythical beings and monsters.
The University of Alaska is on the other side of the county, which is ideal for the soon-to-be matriculating Aideen, who wants to get away from her indifferent father. Of course, she’ll miss her best friends, Emily and Jeff, the latter of whom is definitely in love with Aideen—a feeling that may be mutual. Aideen’s world is turned upside down by Emily’s sudden disappearance, especially when she gets a phone call that leaves no doubt that someone has abducted her friend. Aideen and Jeff investigate, leading them to a run-in with a peculiar bunch whose members turn into horrific creatures. As Aideen soon learns, there’s a lot she doesn’t know about her own life, her late mother, and her seemingly dormant powers. Searching for Emily, Aideen also struggles to keep herself and Jeff safe from adversaries with incomparable strength and razor-sharp fangs. Dutary’s debut novel, which kicks off a series, places a refreshingly complex protagonist at the helm. Aideen, for a reason she can’t explain, is racked by guilt over her mother’s death and the murder of another kidnapped friend (Jeff’s brother) five years earlier. The story rolls along at a steady place as Aideen teams up with various allies who can help fend off the formidable baddies and juggles a potential romance with the endearing Jeff. As the story progresses, a history Aideen is oblivious to slowly comes to light, with enough details to keep the narrative engaging and generate material for sequels. Although the mythical beings and their abilities are familiar (“Vampires? Werewolves? I don’t fucking know”), their hazy motives and longstanding loyalties give these characters entertaining texture. This inaugural series entry introduces many compelling questions, such as the reason why Aideen’s allies deliberately withhold crucial information.
A superbly developed cast fuels this suspenseful tale, brimming with romance and vicious creatures.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2026
ISBN: 9781963029185
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Alex Parker Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2026
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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