A warmhearted tale about second chances that will satisfy fans of romance and family dramas.
After getting pregnant at age 16, a young woman tries to make the most of the hand that life has dealt her in this novel.
Sissie Klein may have been date-raped. She’s not sure because she was so drunk that she can’t remember what happened after she and her best friend, Della Castro, went out on the town. When she wakes up naked the next morning in 23-year-old Caleb Dietrich’s apartment, she’s focused only on getting out of there. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, she has a bad virus that prompts a blood test, and she learns that she’s not going to be able to put the night behind her because she’s pregnant. After considering her various options, Sissie decides to keep the child, and her father effectively bullies Caleb into taking responsibility for the baby and Sissie. For reasons that aren’t entirely convincing, Sissie soon agrees to marry Caleb, and they begin to follow a traditional path. Caleb finds a job nearby, and Sissie takes on the role of homemaker. Their baby girl is born; years go by; and they gradually settle into a routine as a normal family. It seems Sissie may have made the right choice marrying Caleb after all, until a tragic accident occurs and she learns devastating secrets about the man she thought had become a perfect husband and father. Told in the first person throughout, Clink’s narrative takes readers on a journey through multiple decades as Sissie navigates a life that developed all because of one wild night in high school. The author creates relatable, rounded characters and dives deep into their thoughts. There are certain topics that would have benefited from further exploration, like Sissie’s feelings about her first sexual encounter with Caleb or the fact that her father, in many ways, becomes the villain of the tale. Similarly, many intriguing subplots are left with unanswered or dangling storylines. Even so, the narrative’s insightful examination of the relationship between maturity and self-sacrifice is expertly wrought, and Sissie is so likable that readers can’t help but root for her all the way to the end.
A warmhearted tale about second chances that will satisfy fans of romance and family dramas.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68-463099-8
Page Count: 392
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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