A tense, unpredictable, character-driven thriller about a complicated evil stalking Boston.
A series of church fires in Boston leads a reporter to suspect more serious crimes plague the city in this novel.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dana Pierson’s life in Boston is quickly complicated in many ways as this tale commences. Dana is going to be the guardian of 17-year-old Mia for the school year, for one thing. While waiting to pick up Mia from the airport, Dana learns that her ex-husband, Drew, the father of her long-lost son, Joel, is back in Boston as well. And it isn’t long before Dana hears from her longtime journalist partner, Kip Connor, who calls her late one night from the scene of a fire at St. Barbara’s, a decommissioned Roman Catholic church. Dana quickly learns that St. Barbara’s is only the latest old Boston church to catch fire—St. Aloysius and St. Lawrence suffered the same fate. In all three cases, there were reports of a blond-haired “ghost” in the vicinity right before the blaze. This seems like more than a coincidence, and the investigation that follows distracts Dana from the progress of Mia’s school year and her ongoing infatuation with the reporter’s dreamboat young nephew, Zac. “His eyes were dark, and his smile, a little bit naughty, turned up ever so slightly in the corners in a sly way,” Mia enthuses at one point. “Showing beautiful sexy teeth. Could teeth be sexy?” Dana and Kip encounter some baffling conduct by Catholic officials in the course of their investigation—and strange behavior on the part of Fire Marshal Ryan Kelly, who shows a curious amount of interest in the particular details of the blazes (and whose young brother, Gabe, a victim of church-ignored sexual abuse, has angelic looks and long blond hair). Jones keeps these and a half-dozen other subplots spinning in the remarkably smooth and readable story. The narrative speeds along, largely propelled by dialogue, and the author skillfully raises intriguing questions about virtually every character, from steadfast Kip to the missing Joel.
A tense, unpredictable, character-driven thriller about a complicated evil stalking Boston.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2021
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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