An energetic and bold tale of one of history’s most enterprising journalists.
Indomitable investigative journalist Nellie Bly spends 10 days in a notorious asylum in Rodale’s historical novel.
It’s 1887, and after four months spent knocking on doors on Newspaper Row, aspiring journalist Nellie Bly has yet to take New York City by storm. The ever determined 23-year-old is especially good at asking questions and believing in herself, but so far all her tenacity has gotten her is a recommendation to write for the ladies’ papers. It doesn’t help that every prominent male editor in the city has the same belief—women are too delicate, too emotional, too inaccurate to efficiently report the news. So when Nellie stumbles upon an underground women’s group called the Ladies’ Ordinary, she's thrilled to discover a secret weapon that will help her prove her worth. There, Nellie meets a crew of women journalists who introduce her to the world of stunt reporting: “Nothing sells like a crusade and a girl in danger.” With her friends’ help, Nellie meets with Col. John Cockerill, the World's editor, and convinces him to hire her as a stuntwoman reporter who will infiltrate the infamous Blackwell’s Island insane asylum for women. Easily enough, Nellie finds herself en route to the island, but what awaits her in the middle of the East River is more dreadful than she dared prepare for. When one week turns into 10 days, and with the Sun's Sam Colton hot on her story’s tail, Nellie wonders if she’ll be able to survive her dire circumstances long enough to relay her exposé to the world. While Rodale takes some liberties—for example, Blackwell’s darkly humorous “Prayer Girl” is based on one line of the real Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House” (1887)—all her main characters are inspired by real historical figures. Rodale’s affinity for writing about powerful women is clear, and she aptly records the lengths they would go to in order to overcome their societal boundaries: “There were all kinds of madness, she supposes, and hers was daring to dream.”
An energetic and bold tale of one of history’s most enterprising journalists.Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-43675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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