This novel evokes a restorative, sun-kissed vacation in the Italian countryside on every page.
A group of guests staying at a charming Italian inn forges friendships and fresh starts in the second installment of Sullivan’s cozy series.
The latest arrivals to the Three Coins Inn in sleepy Umbria are strangers, but they have at least one thing in common: All are traveling with excess baggage. Career-driven morning television personality Madison Moore suffers a humiliating setback after her affair with a married man, who happens to be her producer, is exposed on live air. The life of former competitive swimmer Chris Larson implodes when he finds his wife in bed with his best friend and business partner. Meanwhile, Heike Schneider is grieving the recent death of her husband and has lost her sense of purpose since bestowing the restaurant she helped build to her overbearing daughter and son-in-law. Then there’s Grace Bradford, also widowed, who is traveling with her 12-year-old granddaughter, Kathryn, a skilled soccer player in need of a break from her parents’ marital strife. Through cooking classes, day trips to idyllic medieval towns, invigorating hikes, and spa visits, the tourists gradually learn to lean on each other. A close friendship forms between Grace and Heike, inspiring Grace to reveal a long-held secret about her late husband; Kathryn befriends some local children and discovers the joy of soccer free of her parents’ disapproval; and sparks fly between Madison and Chris. Crisp descriptions of postcard-worthy scenery, breezy, unhurried days, generous pours of red wine, and delectable dishes like fettuccine with wild boar sauce and caprese salad drizzled with “glimmering yellow olive oil” provide a comforting balm to readers. The novel is well-paced with short, snappy chapters told through multiple points of view. Though the cast is rather large, Sullivan does a nice job of distinguishing the players, and readers will find themselves rooting for these endearing and relatable characters.
This novel evokes a restorative, sun-kissed vacation in the Italian countryside on every page.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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