A fun, atmospheric novel set in beautiful Provence, where wine aficionados provide more atmosphere than plot.
In the idyllic French countryside, an American wine expert tries to save his view and rescue his best friend.
Kendrick Thomas, a 40-something American living in the south of France, seems to have an idyllic life. Like the author, he’s in the wine business, importing French and other European vintages to the United States. He lives in a former farmhouse with stunning views of the countryside, wide blue skies, and glimpses of the Mediterranean. He spends his time traveling to wineries to taste their wares, taking siestas, and hanging out and cooking with his friend Henri Poupon, a local winemaker. Kendrick values beauty above all, but he fears it’s losing out to greed in the form of modern conveniences, excessive development, and tourism. Worse, a series of annoying difficulties threatens to disrupt his comfortable life. First, when he pays a routine tasting visit to one of his long-standing suppliers in Alsace, they unexpectedly threaten to stop doing business with him unless he accepts impossible terms. Then an obnoxious and unpopular neighbor, who’s already cut down all his trees and built an eyesore of a house, plans to install a hideous cellphone tower on his property, ruining the view. And Poupon, who fancies himself a ladies’ man, is juggling two girlfriends. How will he manage to address these problems without hurting his friend or disrupting his carefully cultivated lifestyle? Lynch honed his craft describing wines, and this is a book where words that might seem pretentious or silly on a label—for example, “It’s ample, but not at all flabby”—come across as perfectly natural dialogue in context. His writing is vivid with a touch of snark; a man’s bristly mustache “could be used to clean his boots or scrub a burnt skillet,” a utilitarian car is “an automotive version of soviet architecture.” The detailed depictions of wine, food, and landscapes evoke deep sensory pleasure, and nonexpert readers will learn something about wine. The action, however, seems almost incidental.
A fun, atmospheric novel set in beautiful Provence, where wine aficionados provide more atmosphere than plot.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9798895398326
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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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