A compelling and refreshing premise delivers emotionally layered thrills.
In Lute’s novel, a young woman returns to her hometown for work and uncovers secrets about her family.
Atlas Whitaker was a baby when she was left on the porch of a farmhouse in Willow Creek, West Virginia. She never knew her mother and was raised instead by Zola Whitaker and Celia Jones, two compassionate and strong women who took her in as their own. In 1995, Atlas is now a college dropout plagued by aimlessness and an empty checking account; Zola has died, and the elderly Celia is at risk of losing the farmhouse. Guilt-ridden and wanting to help, Atlas takes a job at an asylum-turned-museum, where she assists an uppity curator with an exhibit showcasing Appalachian art. The job posting neglected to mention that Atlas would see ghosts in the hallway or get trapped in the creepy basement. The narrative jumps back to 1970, when 17-year-old Garnet Whitaker is desperate to get away from her abusive father. After Zola and Celia rescue her, she’s hired as the phone operator at the asylum, where she befriends a Deaf patient named Esther and develops a crush on one of the doctors, Eddie James. Garnet settles into her new routine and is excited for her future: “All Garnet could think of was a life of beauty, away from work and toil and dirt.” But things are not perfect—Eddie wants to keep their relationship secret, and Esther is afraid of one of the doctors. Garnet is thrown into the middle of unexpected horrors; decades later, Atlas contends with the institution’s hauntings and her family’s connection to the misdeeds that took place there 25 years earlier. Lute’s story starts strong and remains riveting throughout. The book has a few minor flaws, like the minor subplot of the curator’s possible sabotage, which frustratingly remains a loose thread. Still, the blending of Appalachian heritage and culture with genuine, edge-of-your-seat thrills is thoroughly engaging. Lute doesn’t rely solely on dramatic, spooky gimmicks—the heart of the novel is the celebration of found family and the astounding resilience of women, a story worth telling and a story definitely worth reading.
A compelling and refreshing premise delivers emotionally layered thrills.Pub Date: June 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781961609068
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Thorncraft Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.
A boy band cruise is the site of one woman’s post-divorce healing.
Annie never meant to end up alone on a Boy Talk cruise, but that’s exactly what happens when her sister breaks a leg and has to bow out of their vacation. Now Annie is sharing a cabin with a stranger, stuck on the cruise ship American Fantasy with the 1990s band—and thousands of their biggest fans, known as Talkers. Annie doesn’t consider herself a Talker, even if she was a fan back in the day. But reeling from a recent divorce and dealing with complex feelings about turning 50, Annie throws herself into the distraction of the trip. What she doesn’t expect is to truly connect with the music, the band, the other fans, and herself. As Annie observes, “This was why people turned to religion or watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar instead of alone in their living room. It felt good to be a part of something where your passion was celebrated instead of mocked.” All the Talkers dream of having a special bond with “the guys,” but when Annie actually does meet Keith, a Boy Talk member who’s clearly going through a hard time, she wonders if their connection is real or if she’s just as delusional as the other (mostly) women on the ship. Straub depicts a wonderfully immersive world aboard the American Fantasy, one where each woman assigns herself a favorite guy and everyone is bedecked in Boy Talk merch. For five days, the Talkers live in a fantasy world where the only thing that matters is their connection with a band that meant everything to them so many years ago. As Annie puts it, “Inside her head, which is where she heard the music, it had touched some lever so deep that it couldn’t be reversed…the music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life.”
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217046850
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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