An informative, if slightly uneven, narrative about the dissolution of a marriage.
Klaw’s debut novel follows a community through one couple’s divorce.
Set in the idyllic Greenwood community of Philadelphia, this story follows Lisa and Jake Naudain and their children, Elizabeth and Charlotte, as they navigate a major change in their lives. Jake is bewildered when, after a dinner party, his wife, Lisa, proposes divorce. She’s felt the relationship has been flawed for some time, as Jake has lied about financial matters and his work in IT and as a rock band member doesn’t follow a goal-oriented career trajectory. When they divorce, Jake becomes involved with Samara, a 20-something woman who wants a polyamorous relationship. When young Charlie gets scared one night, she winds up in the same bed with her father and his newfound girlfriend, which leads to additional parental-custody proceedings. Klaw presents the story in a series of vignettes from the close third-person perspectives of Lisa, Jake, Charlie, Elizabeth, and the presiding judge as well as Jake’s attorney, Ellen Ackerman, (whose cases usually involved “that certain type of contemporary twenty-first-century uncoupling in which both parties were highly motivated to approach divorce collaboratively”) and Ellen’s daughter Marni, all of whom reside in Greenwood. The author, a family lawyer herself and author of Keeping It Civil (2013)—a nonfiction book about modern-day people navigating divorces—writes with authority about the legal system and how the end of marriage not only affects the members of a nuclear family, but also the people around them. Although this book is an engaging read and easy to follow, it’s more about the divorce case than it is about individual character development. It also solely follows wealthy characters, so it lacks insight into how people of other socioeconomic statuses in Greenwood might navigate similar circumstances. However, it effectively focuses a clear lens on the legal aspects of dissolving a marriage and negotiating child custody.
An informative, if slightly uneven, narrative about the dissolution of a marriage.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781647424794
Page Count: 334
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2023
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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