Bound to become a classic of the singles scene.
Internet dating comes under the microscope in Chilton’s darkly funny thriller.
After going on a few dates with various losers she’s swiped right on, English coffee-truck owner Gwendolyn Turner is pretty fed up with the dating scene. It doesn’t help that her best friend is due to get married to her milksop of a fiance on Valentine’s Day. Gritting her teeth through Sarah’s hellish hen party, Gwen takes a break to check the Connector app and gets a weird message from a possible match: He says he’s going to have to reschedule their date and includes a link to a news story about the death of a local man—a man Gwen had gone on a terrible date with a week earlier. When the police arrive to question her, it turns out that the guy she dated next is dead, too. Reeling from this strange news, she makes a list of the six men she’s gone out with—from the racist mini-golfer to the full-of-himself mama’s boy. As the body count mounts, Gwen becomes a person of interest in the investigation, of course, but the bigger question is, who could have known to whom she was matched? Who has hacked the app and is pulling the strings? And why her? She’ll have to do her own detective work, with the help of a shady Cuppacino employee and an infamous hacker with a French bulldog. There is definitely something ridiculous about this whole affair; the saving grace is that both Gwen and the author seem to recognize this, and despite the serial killer plot, nothing is taken too seriously. Of course, this could also be off-putting to some readers; no matter how terrible these men were to Gwen, they (probably) don’t deserve to be murdered. Still, Chilton shines a blackly humorous light on male misbehavior and love in the age of the internet—plus the timeless and ridiculous societal pressure of finding “the one.”
Bound to become a classic of the singles scene.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045701
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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