A gripping tale about Cambodia that offers impeccable research and a strong sense of place.
This debut historical novel reveals the lasting reverberations of Cambodia’s brutal past.
It’s 1993 at the beginning of Badgley’s story, and American lawyer Emily Mclean is reeling from the loss of her husband, unborn daughter, and right lower leg in a car crash. In an effort to heal herself by working with people with similar injuries, Emily takes a job with an organization based in Phnom Penh that assists amputees. Her new boss, Sonny, is skeptical of Emily’s motives, believing that she is a privileged American who “has come to help herself by helping these poor people.” Emily is determined to prove him wrong. Guided by her glamorous housemate, Yvette Morceau, Emily explores Phnom Penh and falls in love with the city. A romantic spark flares between Emily and Nick Landrey, a rough-and-tumble journalist from Louisiana—the first time she’s had feelings for someone since her husband’s death. She even considers adopting a Cambodian child. Emily’s story is interspersed with flashbacks to 1977 and the first-person chronicle of Milijana Petrova, a Yugoslavian woman being held in Phnom Penh’s notorious “prison for counter-revolutionary traitors.” When Emily visits the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, a mysterious connection between herself and Milijana surfaces. Solving that mystery will change Emily’s life forever. Badgley lived in Phnom Penh and worked at the Tuol Sleng Museum, and her personal experience is apparent throughout her vivid, expertly plotted tale. Whether she’s noting that “leather shoes were known to sprout mushrooms” during the monsoon season or describing the Phnom Penh expatriate community, the author’s astute observations about weather, landscape, and personalities bring her story to life. But Badgley’s impressive character-building and nuanced understanding of Cambodian history are marred slightly by misplaced commas (“No, I don’t. But I’d like, too”) and her occasional use of dialogue as heavy-handed exposition. Still, these minor problems do not detract from the author’s passionate narrative, which will continue to surprise readers until the very end.
A gripping tale about Cambodia that offers impeccable research and a strong sense of place.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73782-650-7
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Lure Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Hilarious, grotesque, and standing slightly in the shadow of its sibling.
Awad returns to the world of Bunny (2019), armed with her signature satirical and surrealist flair.
Samantha Heather Mackey has written a novel, and when she arrives on the dreamy and violent campus of Warren University, where she got her MFA, for her book tour, her fellow former students known as the Bunnies kidnap her and confront her about her thinly veiled autobiographical debut. Now the Bunnies are finally getting their say—and, boy, are they talkative. Offering a kaleidoscopic view of what went down before, during, and after the events chronicled in Bunny, the girls can’t contain their rage, disgust, jealousy, boredom, and hurt over Samantha and her novel. Eventually, Aerius, the Bunnies’ “First Boy. First Draft. First Darling.…First humiliation,” cuts in to offer his side of the story: How he came to be; his understanding (and misunderstanding) of the world; and how he causes, circumvents, and fits into the events of and beyond the first novel. Though he avoids the Bunnies (his “Keepers”) at all costs, they yearn and search for him, their finest work—even if you account for his bloody, violent streak. Considering whether Aerius was the town’s deranged murderer, they slyly say, “But ultimately, we simply did not think so, no. Because he’d come from us and we were lovely. As has already been stated.” This novel is at its best when musing about creativity, writing, and “the work”; skewering academia and elitism; and straddling the slippery border between reality and fantasy. Billed as a standalone, it is most successful as a companion to its predecessor, though at times it reveals too much about the mysterious lore and elusive dynamics of the first novel. Awad’s pacing is uneven, but she sticks the landing with a delightfully unexpected and unhinged ending. Her wit, humor, and metafictional prowess are on full display in this prequel, sequel, expanded upside-down revision, or whatever you want to call it.
Hilarious, grotesque, and standing slightly in the shadow of its sibling.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668059869
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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