Perplexing subplots and superfluous characters muffle this historical family drama’s poignancy.
In Perkins’ historical novel, a young boy finds love and support for the first time.
The year is 1905, and Anna Jones is a young, single mother who has done “as little as possible” to take care of her 10-year-old son William. Choosing freedom over parental responsibility, Anna takes William to her hometown of Rawlings, Washington, under the pretext of meeting his grandparents, George and Marie Seevers, before abandoning him. George and Marie are devastated to learn of their grandson’s mistreatment, but they cannot properly raise him either, so William is sent to live with his sweet uncle and aunt, Steven and Jane Taylor. Steven and Jane do their best to convince the young boy that the entire family wants and loves him; they offer young William a puppy, the chance for a good education, and more. But Anna soon comes back into the picture, declaring that William is her “property” and that she will not let him go without a fight. As the whole extended family deals with the legal and emotional ramifications of William’s custody situation, the author follows a large cast of characters over five years as William grows up with many questions about his future and his past with his mother, wondering whether or not she will ever change. Perkins’ narrative includes tender and sad moments that will endear William to readers; his succinct summations of his abuse are heart-wrenching, and his love for his puppy, Patch, is a true joy. Curiously, then, the story focuses more on its extended cast of much less engaging adults. Anna is a vexing creation with great potential as a character, but the meandering plot drifts into stiff, tedious legal exchanges, local politics, and a strange thread about a parole hearing that is dismissed just as suddenly as it appears. The result is a choppy reading experience—it’s difficult to keep track of how characters are related and what, if anything, their actions have to do with William. The story’s time period is also underused, with the text making only a few references to antiquated technology like old cameras and buggies, which adds to an overall sense of confusion.
Perplexing subplots and superfluous characters muffle this historical family drama’s poignancy.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9798890916143
Page Count: 250
Publisher: ReadersMagnet LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2024
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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