A compelling, if painful, historical drama with a strong female protagonist.
Seidman’s historical novel tells the story of a young Osage woman whose family is devastated by the cruelty that the American government inflicts upon Native American people.
When U.S. forces forced the Osage people to move from Kansas to Oklahoma, the tribe demanded compensation for giving up their reservation land. They won their case, and in 1906, the Osage Allotment Act provided individual allotments of land and a portion of any mineral rights that lay beneath the new territory. When oil was discovered there, the Osage people became the country’s wealthiest Indigenous group. John Soaring Eagle builds a cattle farm, on which he and his wife raise five children: Everett, Charles, Joseph, Lucy, and Susannah. Lucy learns that if she wants her father’s attention, she has to share his passion for horses, and it’s a love she carries throughout her life. Her mother dies from smallpox, so the 6-year-old Lucy and her sister must go to live with the family’s good friends, Ella and Gabe Redhorn, who have two daughters, Lily and Violet. When little Susannah falls ill, Lucy returns to the family farm for the summer, and John gives her a small pony—the first of several beloved horses she’ll own throughout her life. The Osage children, upon turning 14, must attend the Harmony Indian Boarding School set up by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs—an institution with the goal of erasing their Native heritage. While Lucy’s there, John Soaring Eagle dies in what appears to be an accident. There will be many more fatal “accidents” as envious and greedy white men steal Osage people’s oil rights.
Seidman’s twisty historical drama is relayed by two narrators. One is Loula Long Combs, the adult Lucy’s white friend in Kansas City, where Lucy moves with her husband and young daughter; Loula introduces and summarizes each chapter in the first person, frequently expressing her own guilt over not being able to protect Lucy from the evil forces that follow her. Third-person narration then takes over to portray the details of the dramatic events from Lucy’s perspective—an intriguing narrative technique. However, this unusual structure results in too much unnecessary repetition of the story’s events. That said, Seidman’s meticulous prose balances compelling and disturbing history with heartbreaking melodrama; the horrors of Lucy’s life ultimately lead her to become addicted to alcohol and laudanum. Although the move to Kansas is intended to keep Lucy safe, readers witness repeated incidents of racism, directed against Native Americans in the new locale—the same prejudices that threatened them in Oklahoma. However, the narrative also contains wonderful descriptions of Osage culture and spirituality, and of Native characters’ close relationships with horses: “White men use bits to make their horses do what they want,” Lucy’s father tells her early on. “Osages know it’s not about making your horse do things. It’s about the friendship you build with your horse.” A small but diverse cast of secondary characters—Osage, white, and Black—add elements of love and joy to this sad tale.
A compelling, if painful, historical drama with a strong female protagonist.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
