Part love story, part thriller, this novel will appeal to fans of Hollywood and May-December romance.
A down-on-her luck young woman meets and quickly marries a famed Hollywood producer even though he's 41 years her senior.
Twenty-six-year-old Advika Srinivasan has long dreamed of being a screenwriter, but after her twin sister dies in an accident, she gives up. Instead of making the movies she always imagined, she works for a catering company, tending bar at A-list parties. At one of these events she's approached by Julian Zelding, a sexy movie producer who's just won his fifth Oscar. In his late 60s, he’s much older than Advika, but when he makes clear his romantic intentions, she finds herself smitten. After a whirlwind courtship, the two quickly marry. Still grieving her sister’s death and her parents’ subsequent relocation to India, Advika is relieved to have someone who is so committed to her again. Unfortunately, shortly after they tie the knot, Advika begins to discover disconcerting tidbits about Julian’s relationships with his three former wives. She wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake and whether she'll ever be able to escape him. Told in a close third-person voice, the novel follows Advika as she tries to learn more about Julian by examining the lives of his exes. Full of details about everything that makes Hollywood both magical and frighteningly powerful, the story also highlights how much it meant to Advika to see Indian characters in a film in her youth and how deeply she cares about bringing greater diversity to the industry. The author also creates a complex and nuanced character in Julian, whose motivation and agenda seem to provoke more questions than answers. At times, there is a frustrating lack of clarity as Ramisetti chooses to keep from ever explaining certain aspects of Julian’s behavior. Conversely, there are times when an abundance of unnecessary details interrupts the pace of the narrative. Even so, the underlying premise of this unique story is sufficiently beguiling that readers will keep turning pages in their hurry to find out how it all ends.
Part love story, part thriller, this novel will appeal to fans of Hollywood and May-December romance.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781538709276
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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