An eternally satisfying love story is retold, backed by a detailed examination of colonial privilege.
The clandestine love affair between Victorian poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is set against a background of slavery and injustice in Jamaica, with implications for the Barrett family, “dirtied by profit from the West Indies.”
“I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart—and I love you too,” the not (yet) successful Browning declares, in 1845 England, in a letter to the invalid Barrett, whom he has never met yet already admires for her work and searching intelligence. Too fragile to be visited during the winter, Barrett prevents Browning from calling for five months, but the couple exchange a frantic correspondence, while their siblings meet socially in a circle that includes proto-feminist and abolitionist Lenore Goss. While spending time in Jamaica, where her family owns a sugar plantation, Goss met one of Barrett’s brothers, Sam, who was managing his own family’s plantation. Before his death from yellow fever, Sam had taken a Black woman, Mary Ann Hawthorne, as his mistress, and had a child with her, David. Mary Ann and David have recently come to London seeking acknowledgment from the Barrett family and an education for the boy, requests that are denied by the clan’s patriarch, a stern, controlling figure who dominates Elizabeth’s life and health. Browning, younger and poorer but ardent, wants to marry Barrett and take her abroad for her health, a commitment viewed anxiously by his sister, Sarianna, whose lot is to tend their elderly mother. While the men have freedom, it’s the women’s predicaments and situations that interest McNeal, switching among them sympathetically until the poets make their escape, marrying secretly and fleeing to Italy. Now the storyline hews more closely to the two central figures and their romantic but precarious journey, while maintaining a sensitive watch on its scattered cast.
An eternally satisfying love story is retold, backed by a detailed examination of colonial privilege.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781643753201
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
