An engaging orphanage tale with enough optimism to counterbalance the narrative’s distressing core.
A coming-of-age novel focuses on a girl born in 1954 who spends her childhood and teenage years in and out of a small-town orphanage.
Rileigh Ophelia Horton, the charming narrator of this disturbing tale, is 6 years old when her unwed mother, Ophelia, suffers from an economic and emotional downward spiral. Ophelia places her daughter in The Margaret Lloyd Stansel’s Children’s Asylum of Abbottville, Georgia. Rileigh soon discovers that most of the kids in the orphanage, who supposedly have no one to care for them, do in fact have one or two living parents or at least an extended family. Despite the condemnation of society and her family, Ophelia had tried to raise the little girl on her own for six years. Sadly, Ophelia’s dependency on alcohol and her proclivity for poor choices in male companions finally took their toll. It is a terrifying first night for Rileigh, who thought her mamma was just taking her on a road trip. But she quickly bonds with four other 6-year-olds— Kirbie Jo Givens, Marla Norris, Loretta Thomas, and Marydale Brown. The five kids form a tight friendship, a sisterhood that lasts well after they have all aged out of the system. The novel is a collection of poignant, sometimes heartbreaking episodes that recall the hopes, bitter disappointments, and triumphs of the next 12 years of Rileigh’s life. Her mother’s visits are painfully rare. Several times, Ophelia brings her back home—until things fall apart again and Rileigh must return to the institution that she calls her “other home.” It is a sad story that contains a surprising buoyancy in spirit. These girls remain resilient in the face of mistreatment, even abuse. Eadie peppers her prose with the vernacular of the time and place, and Rileigh is always ready with a sarcastic, amusing description. Referring to the children in her elementary school who did not come from the orphanage, she says: “We had no more chance to be their friends than a cat in hell with gasoline drawers on.” But the author’s overuse of Rileigh’s standard transitional term anywho becomes irritating.
An engaging orphanage tale with enough optimism to counterbalance the narrative’s distressing core.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2022
ISBN: 979-8410158657
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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