Satisfying for those who believe in sisterhood and second chances.
In Guarino’s romance novel, a woman is afraid to experience love again after tragedy strikes.
Teagan is an accountant, the mother of an adopted baby, and a wife—but when her husband, Mike, is struck by a car, her new identity as a widow supersedes the rest. Luckily, Teagan is surrounded by family and friends. Siblings Padrick, a police chief, and motherly Bridget are supportive, though bitter middle sister Colleen shows little sympathy. Work friends Suellen, Carol, and Lynne try to cheer Teagan up, dining in her office when she’s too depressed to make it to the lunchroom. Luke, a single dad and police officer who works under Padrick, also wants to be a friend. He’s present when Teagan gets the bad news about Mike, drives by when she gets cramps while running and needs a ride, and answers the call when Teagan needs help with a confused elderly lady she encounters. Luke and Teagan were intimate when they were in high school, but Teagan prefers to keep some emotional distance now; Jaden, her child, is enough to deal with, and she’s still grieving Mike. Teagan also doesn’t want to cause gossip in her small town. Nasty anonymous letters arrive in the mail, and they seem to be written by someone in her inner circle, making Teagan unsure of who to trust. Guarino’s female characters evince a warming sense of solidarity, and Teagan’s love for Jaden is sweet—she “laugh[s] tears of happiness” seeing him having fun, and will “go to any length for him.” But some compelling avenues of exploration remain unexplored—making Jaden biracial but ignoring the challenges this may present seems like a wasted opportunity, while the most complicated character, the villainous outlier Colleen, is ultimately dismissed as “a classic narcissist.” The setting of Caldwell, New Jersey is mostly peripheral, but the town’s small size may explain why Luke keeps popping up fortuitously in Teagan’s everyday life. Fans of steamy interludes will find their desires fulfilled as Teagan, “swathed in…manliness” experiences “sweetness and anticipation and fire” in several scenes.
Satisfying for those who believe in sisterhood and second chances.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2026
ISBN: 9781685137007
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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