This satisfyingly nuanced story tackles sexuality and spiritual abuse, offering connection and redemption.
Two conversion therapy survivors go back to the site of their trauma, hoping the truth will set them free.
Delia Barnes, 38, returns to her Oregon hometown after her wife leaves her and she’s fired from her coaching job at a Massachusetts college. Is this a fresh start or a reversion to adolescence? After all, she’ll be the girls’ basketball coach at her old high school, Rockside, where her ex-boyfriend Jonas is principal and her brother, Dylan, a custodian. The whole area harbors troubling memories. Twenty-five years ago, Pastor Cody Quade found her kissing a girl named Shawna in New Day Church’s basement and arranged for her to be sent to Celebration Camp, where she was subjected to conversion therapy until she—with Ernest Wrangham and Cal, two other gay teenagers—ran away. Ernest, too, has been drawn back to Oregon as an adult; every few chapters, the novel cuts to his perspective. A poet with a boyfriend back in Brooklyn, he’s in Portland for a year to teach at Lewis & Clark College. These two central characters orbit each other, and the camp, as they come to terms with the spiritual abuse they suffered there. “Basketball as addiction” fuels Delia’s anger issues and means her self-esteem relies on a state championship win. Yet redemption sneaks in by other means—she shows compassion to her players and accepts the new pastor’s friendship. There are no simple recovery narratives here. Flashbacks fill in Delia and Ernest’s past, long withholding the worst of what happened at Celebration Camp to maintain tension. The compelling leads, engaging blow-by-blows of basketball games, and small-town feuds ground a heartening, issues-driven book. Secondary characters shine, too: nonbinary student Mickey; philosophical janitor Robin; even Ernest’s cats, Virginia Woolf and Audre Lorde.
This satisfyingly nuanced story tackles sexuality and spiritual abuse, offering connection and redemption.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63614-079-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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