An absorbing tale of friendship that’s endearing as often as it’s unabashedly riotous.
The lives of the owner of a house-painting business and a teen runaway intersect in Barrett’s comic novel.
Waking up next to a dead woman would unsettle most people. But 31-year-old Sammy Davis Junior (Junior is his surname) is more worried about making it to Saturday brunch. His apparent apathy regarding the late bedmate—his regular hookup for the past month—makes South Tampa Det. O’Hare suspicious. Elsewhere, Penny Sullivan, torn up by guilt over her big sister, Catelyn’s death, has run away from home to evade boarding school. The 15-year-old travels under her sister’s name and feigns the background of a Canadian backpacker. Looking for a place to squat, Penny enters the orbit of a house-painting crew, a business Sammy and his two friends have run since high school. As she joins them on a multiday gig at the same location where she’s secretly bunking, Penny unexpectedly bonds with the older men. They play silly games, like dreaming up the most offbeat haiku, and execute well-planned pranks on local businesses. Penny and Sammy are more alike than either of them realizes; they both have father issues—Penny is certain her father doesn’t care about her, and Sammy resists taking over the multinational family business, despite his father’s wishes. The two must come to terms with their personal relationships as well as their more practical circumstances, as people are searching for Penny, and Sammy, even with his father’s “expensive lawyers,” is still tied to someone’s death.
Barrett’s story definitely has its share of morbid humor—despite the body in his bed, Sammy is blasé during the detective’s interview: “I think we’re all pretty shaken up by this whole scene,” he says. “So, I can go now?” Lowbrow jokes also pop up on occasion, including a particularly gross scene involving beer that no one should drink. The characters practically burst with personality, especially Penny, Sammy, and Sammy’s co-owners, Mealy and Beer. Penny, who’s lost both her mom and sister, has no friends, and these men offer the camaraderie that she needs. Most of their pranks, even when they cause a ruckus at a deli or a fast-food restaurant, are genuinely funny and not malicious. As much of the bonding between Penny and the crew occurs while they’re painting a house, dialogue-laden scenes are abundant. These are moments for characters to pass the time with games and trading off quips, but the author doesn’t neglect to develop the story as well, as Penny seems to gain a fondness for Mealy, who shows her kindness from the very beginning. All of that dialogue, presented in brief chapters alternating between narrators Penny and Sammy, stokes the brisk narrative pace. The final act effectively wraps up the protagonists’ individual stories, though Penny’s is the more convincing and rewarding of the two. The denouement is a bit of a swerve but unquestionably memorable.
An absorbing tale of friendship that’s endearing as often as it’s unabashedly riotous.Pub Date: April 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781685131821
Page Count: 291
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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