An immersive and engaging interior chronicle of young people and their enduring educators.
Journalist and Manhattan schoolteacher Chanko presents a novel that explores the lives of an educator and his students during an eventful school year.
In a school on New York City’s Upper East Side, Martin Jordanowski is teaching his first Writing Enrichment cluster class of the 2007-2008 school year. It’s an enormous feat for him just to establish minor connections with the troubled students in his class, many of them in their mid-teens. The student body contains a number of emotionally disturbed teenagers, mostly boys, who reside in shelters when not in school. Sassy Kandra McKissick and cocky, jealous Shay are in one of his classes; their lives and others’ are explored in depth as the novel progresses. Kandra lives with an abusive stepmother and has a penchant for physical violence at school; Shay considers her his property, and things get messy when Martin takes an interest in Kandra. Martin, who’s known to his students as “Mr. J,” is a 25-year-old from a small Indiana town who’s unwilling to surrender control of his classroom to a student body that, in its formative years, has already seen a great many difficulties before reaching the eighth grade. But he becomes emotionally involved with some of the students, which costs him dearly. He’s also contending with the solemn aftermath of his sister Cassie’s recent death by overdose and the guilt he feels after distancing himself from his family in Indiana, which made him miss precious opportunities to see his sister before her death.
Martin must also deal with a teacher’s suspicious “accident” and a constant stream of threats and rumors ricocheting around the campus; he soothes himself with occasional drinks from flasks of whiskey as he navigates his way through it all. His fellow teachers include Shirley Holmes, a doting mother to her reckless 26-year-old daughter, Coretta, whom she hopes will follow in her footsteps (and who also happens to be Kandra’s cousin). Other teachers offering Martin counsel are gym teacher Paul Massaro, who gives him a cautionary welcome to the school, warning him of unsavory student behavior and an administration that always bends in favor of the students. These elements—as well as plenty of melodrama—all coalesce brilliantly and immerse readers in a world where education takes a back seat to interpersonal upheavals. This is a story about how instructors clash with embittered kids eager for attention. Chanko juggles the presentation of all these characters and their issues with immense skill. Because the novel focuses on a different character in each chapter, it effectively presents a prism of perspectives as each of the characters struggles with their own unique challenges over the course of the story. The author combines realistic dialogue, complex contemporary social issues, and characters to root for in this narrative. The result is a masterful tapestry of strife and resiliency as teachers adapt to the diverse learning styles, comprehension speeds, and personalities of the many kids in their care.
An immersive and engaging interior chronicle of young people and their enduring educators.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798886798616
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Luminare Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2023
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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