A middling entry in the library of medieval English historical fiction.
A lumbering yarn of a once-and-future British king, save that the future never quite materializes.
How you gonna keep him down on the farm after he’s seen Dijon? John Collan, 10 years old when we meet him, is obsessed with ridding his farm hamlet of a devil goat that, he writes, “knocked me in the mud again today & has TRODDEN churlishly over my back.” John also keeps himself busy absorbing the folk wisdom of the simple Saxons among whom he lives, including a cheesemaker with a salty tongue: “A fucking nuisance, she was,” she says of Joan of Arc. “I like to think Banbury cheese had a hand in her downfall.” Well, along comes a mysterious stranger who reveals that John is not who he thinks he is, but instead the tucked-away descendant of a murdered nobleman and, to boot, a claimant to the throne. Trouble is, the other claimants, among them the last of the Plantagenets and the first of the Tudors, have other ideas. John is hauled off to Oxford to learn his Latin and courtly manners and such. There, his kindly patron tells him, “Your real name is Edward, but we can’t use that yet. In letters we’ve coded you Lambert, so we may as well stick at that. You are Lambert Simons.” His education is polished in Burgundy and Ireland, where he finds love and intrigue, per historical fiction formula. Harkin’s tale is slow-moving, with often labored writing that makes for labored reading, and with a kind of half-commitment to using period language: “Sir James Butler has a maugre against the York kings. He picked the Lancastrian side in the great wars, the doddard.” Suffice it to say that at tale’s end, we’re glad to see John/Lambert/Edward sail off for Spain.
A middling entry in the library of medieval English historical fiction.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780593803301
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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