Strangely relevant as we begin to reflect on our own experiences during the pandemic shutdown.
A woman finds herself alone at a hunting cabin, cut off from the world by an invisible, impenetrable wall.
In this translation of a 1963 German novel, an unnamed narrator is suddenly forced to fend for herself at a hunting lodge deep in the Austrian woods. She’s isolated from all human contact by an invisible wall that appears overnight. “I shall set everything down as precisely as I can,” she writes, recording her life for posterity, if there is one. She also writes to stay sane. “I’m not writing for the sheer joy of writing; so many things have happened to me that I must write if I am not to lose my reason.” The wall, “this terrible, invisible thing,” hems her in and forces her to rethink everything about her existence. Everyone beyond the wall appears to be dead. The woman begins by limiting her space and establishing a garden. Her story is a study in survival but also a study of being human. The woman is left with a cat, a cow, and a dog for companionship; these creatures create meaning by giving her something to do. Caregiving fills the days and makes them bearable. So do manual labor and the completion of tasks, which comfort her and “[bring] a bit of order into the huge, terrible disorder that had invaded [her] life.” What is the wall? An allusion to the Cold War? An allegory for the Berlin Wall? Yes. But it also serves as a metaphorical stand-in for so many restrictions. It creates a situation that allows the main character and the reader to examine our ontology and what we think makes us real. Similarly, the main character has a sense that being read would give meaning to her words and, thus, her life: “I still hope someone will read this report…” she says, “my heart beats faster when I imagine human eyes resting on these lines, and human hands turning the pages.” She isn’t coy about the toll that the isolation and hard work take on her body, nor about her own inevitable demise. She considers the world before, but she doesn’t mourn it. All that matters is the present. “I may be in a position,” she says prophetically, “to murder time.”
Strangely relevant as we begin to reflect on our own experiences during the pandemic shutdown.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8112-3194-7
Page Count: 248
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.
Two ambitious athletes plus one fake-dating arrangement—what could go wrong?
Though it’s only his first season for the Boston Bearcats hockey team, Robbie Corrigan has a well-established reputation as a playboy. He’s got major skills on the ice, and he’s also much more likely to love ’em and leave ’em than he is to build any long, meaningful relationships. Naturally, he’s just met the one woman who seems completely resistant to his charm: Skylar Page, a Boston University softball pitcher. When they meet over a friendly Saturday morning baseball game, Robbie instantly makes a poor impression by bragging to his teammates about his latest conquest within Skylar’s hearing. He thinks she’s gorgeous, though, and when he sets his sights on her, he’s surprised that she doesn’t seem to know it. Despite her initial distaste for Robbie, Skylar grudgingly confesses that she could use his help. If they pretend to date, maybe her current crush—her brother’s best friend—will finally sit up and take notice of her in a romantic way. The timing is less than ideal, since Robbie will have to team up with Skylar in the Page family’s latest wilderness competition, but it turns out that Robbie’s willingness to play fake boyfriend stems from some very real feelings. He wants to prove to her that he’s a changed man, and redeeming himself in her eyes starts with making sure she knows that she can really trust him. The latest addition to Bailey’s Big Shots series is a sexy, feel-good romance brimming over with the author’s trademark humor and dirty talk. While Skylar and Robbie’s dynamic doesn’t quite reach the level of enemies-to-lovers—he’s so head-over-heels for her that there’s no room for any real mean-spiritedness—their playful snark doubles as a welcome dash of foreplay in the lead-up to some seriously steamy scenes. Robbie’s efforts to show Skylar that he’s turned over a new leaf also result in some of the book’s best moments, emphasizing his commitment to becoming the type of man he knows she deserves.
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780063380837
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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