A sometimes-thrilling psychological novel about belief and choice.
A woman runs off with a faith healer in Funk’s debut novel.
Three years ago, an unnamed woman was diagnosed with an almost certainly fatal case of ovarian cancer. Despite her lack of religious faith, she attended a faith-healing event and met Jeremiah Promise, who apparently completely cured her. Three years later, Jeremiah—who has since lost all of his followers—comes back to town, and the woman tells him her story. “Did you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior after that?” he asks her, to which she replies, “I accepted you as my savior after that.” Jeremiah renames the woman “True Believer” and asks her to join him in a rebranded faith-healing endeavor called Wholesome Healing Ministries. Filled with starry-eyed excitement, True leaves her old life behind to travel with Jeremiah and accompany him on his newest crusade. The initial admiration she feels for him soon blossoms into stronger, more complex feelings; however, the more time she spends in his presence, the more she realizes that there’s a side to him that isn’t very wholesome at all. The story is told through entries in True Believer’s diary, and the writing, in keeping with the character’s personality, is reliably ebullient: “It would take only a minor quantum feat for us to find ourselves on the same side of the looking glass, finally free to embrace,” she writes of her unrequited feelings for Jeremiah, further noting, “We have talked many times, but never about ‘us.’ Maybe we should—but how to begin?” The preciousness of this prose may turn off some readers, particularly at the beginning of the story. However, the situation becomes less cute after the faith healing begins again, as True Believer is given more to worry about. Overall, the discovery of her supposed savior’s unsavoriness unfolds in a fairly predictable manner. Still, the tale goes on to take a number of twists and turns, and it establishes a complex dynamic between the protagonist and Jeremiah, resulting in a nuanced and engaging exploration of faith.
A sometimes-thrilling psychological novel about belief and choice.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9983016-5-5
Page Count: 307
Publisher: Local Color Books LLC
Review Posted Online: July 27, 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
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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