A deeply affecting novel.
Two Virginians form a profound friendship that must survive the Great War.
In 1917, Roy Young is a cocky Vanderbilt student who takes for granted his future marriage to childhood friend Samantha Hatton. Although she cares for him, she says, “I don’t belong to you, Roy.” Walking up into the highlands, she seeks out a reported “wild boy” who doesn’t know his own name but wears a blue greatcoat with the name “Ennis Duke” stitched inside. He doesn’t remember his family but guesses they may have been lost in a flood; now he lives alone on the mountain. Their mutual attraction is immediate, physical, and powerful, and Sam brings Ennis down to the valley to meet her welcoming family. Home from Vanderbilt, Roy has a fistfight with his new rival, because they were “the kind of boys for whom violence was a native tongue.” But soon they become great friends, and when the U.S. enters the war in Europe, “Master Roy is off to fight the Hun,” and Ennis enlists to fight alongside him. Roy tells his furious father that he’s fighting for honor, but Father says Roy will die for nothing. Roy becomes an officer and Ennis a private, and they fight the enemy in France in gut-wrenching scenes of battle and bloodshed. The two men will risk anything to protect each other, and they are fearsome killers. Meanwhile, the flu comes calling in America and scourges Sam’s Virginia valley. If Roy and Ennis survive, their home will never be the same, and neither will they. The author, himself a Virginian and a combat veteran, skillfully weaves threads of love, friendship, and senseless death into a compelling and often emotional tale where the price of love is paid with sorrow. “Tell somebody that you’ll love them until you die then make it true,” a character says. “Tell them that after you die you will love them still.”
A deeply affecting novel.Pub Date: June 9, 2026
ISBN: 9780063488571
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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