An emotionally honest story about a struggle for balance.
A novel about a tough-minded expatriate who feels overshadowed by her spouse’s career.
Maxfield’s debut novel opens as Em and her husband, Gee, are considering relocating to China for Gee’s job. In the past, his career has taken them to South Korea, Japan, and France, with stints at their American home port of Los Angeles. Life on the road might seem exotic and exciting to many, but it’s a challenge for Em. She’s put her own marketing career on hold and is never anywhere long enough to make deep or lasting friendships. Gee’s time is monopolized by work whether they’re overseas or not, and their kids resent living lives of constant change. On a tour of Shanghai with Gee, Em asks about the city’s deterioration: “Accelerated decay,” Gee says. “The result of harsh environmental factors, coal burning, and sneaker factories”—and their marriage, Em’s career, and her happiness are similarly wasting away. Up to this point in her life, Em has played things safe despite a few brave moments, as when she tells herself she has her “own dragons to slay”—but for most of the novel, though, her moves against her demons are weak, and readers must wait patiently for the moment when she decides she’s finally up for the fight. The shift comes slowly in a disjointed narrative that jumps back and forth in time and around the globe, but Em does eventually realize that change is up to nobody but her. Maxfield calls Em’s problems those of “tagalong wife privilege,” but the novel isn’t just about that; there’s something here that’s more universal, which women in different circumstances are sure to find familiar: the notion of abandoning the care of one’s own health and happiness in the name of love of family and marriage. The book is littered with backstory, and not all of it feels necessary. However, Maxfield does manage to capture the complex push and pull of playing a supporting role in one’s own life.
An emotionally honest story about a struggle for balance.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64-742142-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
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