A meditative tale about rediscovering one’s true self that will appeal to readers reaching midlife.
In this novel, a recent empty nester struggles with whether to leave her husband as she searches for a more fulfilling life.
Shortly after Jennifer’s two children reach young adulthood and move out of the house, she realizes she’s not interested in staying trapped in a mediocre relationship with her husband, Mark. Just as she prepares to tell Mark that they should separate, Jenn’s father shows up, announcing that her mother has died. No longer the time to seek a divorce, Jenn retreats into herself. When she stumbles on old diaries from her youth, she remembers her first love, Thomas “Tripp” Porter. As she reminisces about their great romance, she searches for him on social media and discovers that he messaged her seven years earlier through Facebook. She responds to the message and receives a reply almost instantly. In the decades since they’ve seen each other, Tripp has also married and built a life for himself. Even so, the pair begin communicating via text and phone, and Jenn feels seen for the first time in years. She even works up the nerve to speak to Mark about her discontent, and they begin counseling. As Jenn tries to find her true self, she experiments with moving out of the house and enjoying the freedom of sexual exploration with other partners. She’s on a mission to discover what will finally satisfy her. Told entirely in the first person from Jenn’s perspective, Pursell’s book reads more like a memoir than a novel, with a great deal of introspection and reflection on past events (“Memories are an amazing thing. They allow us to hold on to a part of our past in powerful ways”). Similarly, limited details about the setting throughout the story lead the narration to feel more like diary entries. The author tackles difficult issues of how adults should approach the later portions of their lives and how to balance second chances against the idea of starting fresh, taking a deep dive into those questions with insight and grace. As the story progresses, so too does the explicit sexual content, which unfortunately begins to feel clinical and awkward instead of steamy. Even so, the narrator’s journey toward her own truth will likely speak to many 50-somethings considering their own life paths.
A meditative tale about rediscovering one’s true self that will appeal to readers reaching midlife.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781639887958
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.
Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.
Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781538769997
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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