A gripping tale of marital difficulty intertwined with pallid love affairs.
A widow haunted by the tragic end of her marriage gets her groove back while on a Scottish sojourn in this knotty romance.
Six months after her husband Marc’s death from complications of a stroke, 40-something Wisconsin novelist Heather Finch embarks on an eight-week retreat in Scotland to finish her latest Millicent Monvail mystery and reconnect with John Timmer, an old middle school flame and current sky diving instructor who lives nearby. As she says goodbye to her college-age kids—Jackson, a kindly organic-farming enthusiast, and Tessa, a perpetually put-out handful—Heather’s story splits into two interleaved narratives. One is a love triangle at the White Cottage at Scotland’s Ardorn Estate, where Heather is wooed by John, who takes her strawberry-picking, and by Ardorn’s owner, Steven Connolly, who wines and dines and beds her with satisfactory, though not earthshaking, results. Mild spookiness occurs when she starts dreaming of a ghostly, blood-drenched woman, hears strange clinking noises, and finds her poetry book mysteriously moved around her cottage. The second, darker subplot revisits the three years that Heather, Jackson, and Tessa took care of the once-strong but now helpless Marc after his stroke. The burden exhausts them and is further complicated when Heather discovers that Marc was cheating on her; as his condition worsens, she confronts the agonizing thought that his death would be a relief. The two threads of Benjamin’s tale of midlife rebirth sit uneasily beside each other; Heather’s romances feel conventional and somewhat callow (“he leaned in, his lips at her left ear. ‘I’m going to slow dance with you tonight, my Swan Princess,’ he said”). However, Benjamin’s depiction of Heather’s family life in extremis is far more convincing, as in sharply etched scenes of mother-daughter conflict or passages of bleak endurance: “ ‘I’m fine. I’ll be down in a bit.’…Her head spun, but she drank again. Another drink. Another year. Another bathroom visit with Marc unable to care for himself.” As such, Benjamin’s portrait of Heather’s marriage has a raw emotional power that the ensuing Scottish flings can’t match.
A gripping tale of marital difficulty intertwined with pallid love affairs.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.
This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’ half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593199336
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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
© 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.
