A haunting, slowly building mystery that finds horror not in what is seen but in what cannot be escaped.
A building that’s seen its share of traumatized inhabitants has secrets waiting to be revealed.
For many years, the Harrow Home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore housed unwed pregnant girls, but now it’s owned by the Thorpes, who are turning it into the White Heron Hotel. Though the building’s purpose is changing, the girls’ emotional pain continues to haunt the halls. It’s June 1947, and twins Grace and Cooper Harrow have moved from the main house to the caretaker’s cottage, where they live and work beside their parents and the last wayward girl, Magnolia Sutton. While her family members have adjusted to the change, something stalks Grace at every turn. When she looks in mirrors, blond Grace sees a strange woman with “bobbed black hair, her lipsticked mouth stretched wide.” Then the Thorpe girls arrive—Rose, Ella, and Lou—and Rose is soon haunted by the same vision. Together, Grace and Rose try to uncover who this woman was and how to free her from her past. The story gets off to a leisurely start, taking the time to carefully set up the characters. There’s an ominous, suffocating atmosphere surrounding the central mystery and a sense of dread that comes from the constraints placed on each of the characters—the rigid expectations, lack of autonomy, and quiet ways they’re forced into roles they didn’t choose. Main characters are cued white.
A haunting, slowly building mystery that finds horror not in what is seen but in what cannot be escaped. (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781250432292
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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