A satisfying romance for gardeners and music lovers alike.
Reconciliation and romance flower in this latest installment of a multigenerational family saga set on a lavender farm in the Texas Hill Country.
Fish returns to Comfort, Texas, for her follow-up to Comfort Plans (2017). When 35-year-old Luke English, a recording company executive in Nashville, discovers that award-winning country singer July Sands is retiring at the age of 53, he decides to track her down and convince her to change her mind. But when he arrives at Lavender Hill nursery, run by July’s 29-year old daughter, AJ, he meets opposition, as the younger woman is determined to protect her mom and help her heal from three decades on the road. She’s also coping with her own issues; her ex-boyfriend left her struggling with debt, and her elderly grandmother, Inez Worthington, is having difficulties due to encroaching dementia. Inez is the mother of July’s ex-husband, Roger, and she believes that that her son is a far more talented singer that July is; July and Roger used to perform together. Luke’s mission is made more difficult when Roger arrives at the homestead, as well. Fish’s expressive prose vividly evokes the family conflicts, the hard work of running Lavender Hills, and the colors and scents of the Texas landscape. She threads themes of creativity, self-fulfillment, and healing throughout the narrative and complements them with gardening tips from Lessons from Lavender Hill, the book-within-a-book that AJ has been working on. The characters are well drawn and complex, especially the likable AJ, who struggles to reconcile her growing attraction to Luke with her loyalty to her family and her business responsibilities. She finally realizes that recovery is a process that takes time—much like the patient work of gardening. Flashbacks to Inez’s long-ago romance with Roger’s father in the 1950s add poignancy, and the impact of dementia on the family provides additional depth.
A satisfying romance for gardeners and music lovers alike.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73233-865-4
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Bowker
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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