A smart and gratifying tale about an American in Spain trying to enjoy life.
A young lawyer who is between jobs goes to Spain on a journey to find Ernest Hemingway, or at least his ghost, in this debut novel.
Callie McGraw is a hotshot in the legal world in New York, but after a company merger, she finds herself unemployed. Luckily, a friend asks her to be general counsel at his new tech startup. The only problem is the new job is in San Francisco and it doesn’t start for six months. While she mulls it over, her phone rings, and on the line is Hemingway, who died in 1961. Callie is an enormous fan of The Sun Also Rises and is floored when Hemingway tells her to come find him in Spain. Not questioning the supernatural aspect of this wild occurrence, Callie wrestles her way out of her lease, packs her bags, and heads off to Barcelona. Once there, she meets a geeky American graduate student named Trevor. The two become joined at the hip until Hemingway calls again and they travel to Madrid. There, she meets Claudio, a wealthy Spanish playboy with a passion for partying. He and Callie become lovers, but she still hang outs with Trevor daily. As the months pass, Callie and her small entourage are drawn to Pamplona, where the running of the bulls may lead her to the answers she is seeking. Dortzbach’s wine-soaked tale of an American living it up in Europe has a wonderful first-person voice that charges through the narrative in an ego-driven but conscientious way that is quite engaging. Callie is not always perfect, and she has serious trust issues, but her love of Spain and devotion to friends, namely the ever lovable Trevor, make the book an enjoyable read. The Hemingway phone calls add a light touch of mystery to a story peppered with Spanish art, culture, and food.
A smart and gratifying tale about an American in Spain trying to enjoy life.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73362-470-1
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Cloister Inn Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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