An engrossing, albeit quiet, World War II story about love, loyalty, and the atomic bomb.
Schover’s historical novel chronicles the domestic life of a young Manhattan Project wife as she seeks her purpose during tumultuous times.
Doris Friedman is a college student and new wife in a small Jewish community in Chicago. Told she can never bear children, she and her husband, Rob, decide to forgo birth control; they are rewarded with a surprise pregnancy that derails all of Doris’ plans. Reluctantly, Doris decides to put school on hold to raise the child. Rob, a brilliant machine enthusiast, is recruited to work as a machine expert on a top-secret government project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee: the Manhattan Project. The young family settles into their new life with Rob working long hours and Doris taking care of their baby, Barbara, studying accounting, and giving piano lessons on the side. Doris soon becomes bored with domestic life (“it’s not enough for me, Rob. I want to make some kind of dent in the world”), and the marriage begins to suffer. Rob is exposed to radiation and ends up in the hospital, where Doris is flung into the path of Dave Sokol, a flirtatious safety officer at the lab. Doris and Dave enter a will-they-won’t-they relationship, culminating in a momentary lapse of judgment and the revelation that Dave may harbor a secret agenda. Doris must decide between turning Dave in and risking her marriage or staying silent and endangering the war effort. Schover’s story provides a quiet, domestic perspective on the Manhattan Project, keeping most of the drama and romance subdued until Doris’ final mistake with Dave. Some readers may struggle with the narrative’s lack of energy, but the softer approach works for this story, highlighting the workaday realities of life at Oak Ridge and the tensions of the time period. The characters all follow believable trajectories, and Doris, with her dogged determination not to sit still for the rest of her life, is a uniquely powerful depiction of a 1940s housewife.
An engrossing, albeit quiet, World War II story about love, loyalty, and the atomic bomb.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9798896360568
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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