An immersive, gritty, and engaging dive into a place where tenderness rarely shows its face.
Boilard’s literary novel follows a troubled young artist in a tough New England town.
The year is 1985. Junior Beauchamp lives in a rough-and-tumble burg in rural Massachusetts; this is a place where incidents like bar fights are a regular occurrence. Junior lives with his mother Amber Lee and his brother JP. Junior’s father is dead, and Amber Lee turns to sex work to help pay the bills. One day, Junior forces a roofer named Rick James McGee off the roof of their rented home after JP’s friend Tish complains of an episode with McGee. The roofer, who is “a true scumbag, a serial pedophile,” falls to his death. Junior hides the evidence well, but his deed could easily catch up with him. Luckily for him, there are plenty of other crimes going on around town, such as the local pharmacist engaging in illicit activities like pushing unprescribed pills. Junior is not just some local hooligan—underneath his tough exterior he is a talented artist who might just make it to art school one day—but his life only grows more complicated when Amber Lee goes missing, leaving her sons to fend for themselves in this place where hostility is the norm. Boilard effectively transports readers to this setting where townies seem willing to fight over just about anything, though the roughness can be laid on a little thick at times; when people have names like “Texas Two Step” and they frequent places like the “Bloody Brook Bar,” they seem destined to live out a fairly predictable cycle of trouble. (Even the streets have tough names, like “Grist Mill Road.”) Nevertheless, the author convincingly brings it all to life, particularly in the subplot in which Amber Lee goes missing. Her little adventure, marked by a Satanist, an aging hippie, and an iron will to survive, will certainly keep readers guessing about where she, and the rest of her family, will ultimately land.
An immersive, gritty, and engaging dive into a place where tenderness rarely shows its face.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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