A haunting story of the search for a better life.
Bond’s debut novel subtly tells the stories of several staff members and residents of a group home for troubled teenage boys in 1980s Kentucky.
As the book opens, its primary narrator, AWOL—named for his penchant for escape attempts—is 14, and the story follows him over the next few years. The structure is relatively episodic, with the two main threads being AWOL’s own coming-of-age and the efforts of Watts, an insightful staff member, to improve the lives of his charges. “Watts had prided himself on knowing when there was still a kid on the inside,” AWOL says—but Bond also includes allusions to Watts’ own struggles and flaws. Bond’s close attention to detail, including his use of the word “peer” to describe the home’s residents, gives a precise sense of the language and routines of the place, such as residents being assigned chores in the kitchen and finding stories by Dickens in old issues of Reader’s Digest in the library. AWOL uses the word “peer” from the first page without explaining its context, a device that helps the reader see life through the eyes of these young men. And every once in a while, AWOL makes an observation that breaks your heart: “I’d see teenagers and wonder if I could still be one.” AWOL’s own skill at helping his fellow teens write letters suggests one path forward for him, but his reckoning with what adult life might entail—including the realities of class and public hostility toward “juvenile delinquents”—helps explain his tendency to flee whenever he has the chance. And as the narration makes clear, the realities of the teens’ lives feed their desire for escape: “We ran when our cousins were killed and Watts wouldn’t let us go to the funeral. We ran when peers made fun of our teeth.” This is a slow-burning but moving account of adolescence under duress.
A haunting story of the search for a better life.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798885740685
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Hub City Press
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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