An absorbing, multilayered woman headlines this engrossing tale of deceit and vulnerability.
In this drama, a Pennsylvania crime novelist complicates her latest work by getting close to the family providing her source material.
Sydney Long rolls into a small Maryland town to write about a recent murder. Bill “Swannee” Swann Jr. shot his mother while she lay in bed—just the kind of true crime that’s inspired Sydney’s last few novels. She cozies up to locals to get details on Swannee, who’s staying mum in prison, and even befriends his brother, Jake, and sister, Maggie Craill. Sydney passes herself off as a writer on a working vacation without telling anyone what her novel in progress is about. This entails a bit of deception as well as some snooping and eavesdropping. But in the process, she’s drawn to compassionate Jake and resilient Maggie. Sydney, having fought through problems in her own past, believes her book could start a “healing journey” for the siblings. But that means telling Jake and Maggie the truth, something that may obliterate the surprising intimacy they’ve gradually developed. Readers won’t immediately warm up to Sydney, who manipulates many people in a largely affable community. She’s nevertheless gleefully complex; her “pure” motives of helping the siblings through tragedy feel contrived, but Sydney seems to genuinely believe them. Her personal life, too, proves more riveting than her novel’s subject matter, as she faces hostility from Jake’s ex-fiancee and deals with a string of vaguely threatening anonymous texts (“Watch your back”). Qnert gives each of the alternating first-person narrations—Sydney’s, Jake’s, and Maggie’s—a distinctive flavor, while pithy writing keeps the engaging story moving at a steady clip. And though the murder itself is hardly the focus, a few mysteries do unravel, from certain individuals’ past abuse to some things Sydney keeps under wraps. This is a dense, character-driven tale that makes the ending both worthwhile and nearly impossible to predict.
An absorbing, multilayered woman headlines this engrossing tale of deceit and vulnerability.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 334
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.
A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.
Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328175
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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