A slick and largely entertaining debut about the entertainment world.
An aging actor, his best friend, and some others navigate fame and frustration in Hollywood.
Verity’s current project is the fifth installment of a commercial blockbuster movie franchise in which he plays “green old void Bly.” His closest confidant is 40-something scriptwriter and -editor Helen; the two met in a diner days after Verity moved to Los Angeles and have spent decades intertwined, having sex sometimes and often living together. Verity is a heavy drinker, vain, obsessed with beauty, and beautiful himself—“with that face he would have gotten famous if he couldn’t act his way out of a shoe,” as Helen puts it. Verity gets the idea to lottery off his salary and his percentage of box office sales from his newest movie to someone who’s bought a ticket. The decision comes on the heels of an eyebrow-raising GQ profile, and the winner is announced on the TikTok account of “hitherto unknown” actress Nina Walker, who’s admittedly too young for Verity but with whom he shacks up anyway. These actions scandalize his professional colleagues but don’t surprise Helen. The first-person narration alternates between Verity and Helen until readers are introduced to Phoebe, a young aspiring scriptwriter looking for ways to find support for her fledgling career. The full extent of Phoebe’s connection to Helen and Verity isn’t revealed until quite late in the book. The meandering prose and ruminations on fame and the industry certainly have touches of Joan Didion, who’s explicitly mentioned twice, while Verity’s anachronisms (he refers to cellphones as “rectangles”) and dismal attitude frequently feel Holden Caulfield–esque. An example: Thinking about the relationship between older men and beautiful women, he remarks, “I felt pretty depressed. I really did. I was all over the place.” Though readers may find the winding plot a little thin, Rothery’s prose is frequently a knockout, and her sense of literary style is enjoyable.
A slick and largely entertaining debut about the entertainment world.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780063443327
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 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
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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