A compelling premise dimmed by flawed exposition.
Two American women of different generations try to make sense of their lives in 1980s Paris.
It’s 1982, and Lily Owens, raised in London by American parents, has graduated from university. Her sister, Maude, suggests she brush up on her French, live in Paris for a year, and take a course on French civilization. In France, Lily meets Octave de Malbert, a Frenchman looking for an au pair for his aging aunt, Amenia Quinon, who has a degenerative eye disease and lives in an enormous house Octave hopes to inherit. Amenia has lived in Paris for 65 years, having married a rich Frenchman, François, whom she met on her family’s ranch in Wyoming. Amenia is initially cold to Lily. At her program, the recent college grad befriends two Americans, who introduce Lily to Thibaud, a French law student hoping to leave France for the United States. Amenia’s large, mostly empty house sits in what had been Jewish ghetto prior to World War II, and Lily essentially allows Thibaud to squat there. The narrative switches between Amenia’s and Lily’s perspectives, and though their relationship is tense, they’re mirrors and inversions of each other. Amenia escaped her old life yet becomes more and more obsessed with her past, while Lily, looking to form relationships in France, worries about her future. Unfortunately, this dynamic goes largely unexplored in favor of other struggles, Amenia with the grief and guilt she feels over François and her political inaction during the Holocaust, and Lily with Thibaud as he invites more squatters into the house. There are some compelling passages, largely concerning Paris’ Jewish history. Fleming’s prose, however, tends toward dull exposition: “I’ve always believed my mother would have been a happier individual if she hadn’t married my father. Because she wasn’t in love with him but with his parents, or at least what his parents appeared to be....Their lack of common interest was a recipe for dissatisfaction, unhappiness.” Still, the setup is intriguing, and readers will want to know the intertwined fates of the two leads, the interloper, and the French mansion.
A compelling premise dimmed by flawed exposition.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2024
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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