An unhurried tale about the flaws of the film industry and the healing power of human connection.
A screenwriter clears out her recently deceased grandfather’s home and learns about his youth as part of old Hollywood.
The book opens in 1957 as Hollywood hopeful Isabella Giori auditions for a part in an Alfred Hitchcock film. It’s not long before she’s on the rise to real stardom, but her budding career is cut short when she becomes pregnant. To avoid scandal, a Hollywood fixer moves her to a secluded cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea, where she finds an unlikely friend. Sequestered in the cottage next door is Leo Chazan, a blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter who refused to name names during the ongoing Red Scare of the 1950s. The book then shifts to 2018, where Leo’s granddaughter, Gemma, is preparing to sell his cottage after his recent death. As she’s cleaning out the house, she discovers a safe full of secrets. She also gets to know some of the other residents of this cluster of secluded cottages, including Isabella Giori, and an intriguingly handsome young man named Sam Kenneally, who also knew her grandfather. As Gemma tries to piece together parts of her beloved grandfather’s history that she never knew, she also discovers important truths about herself and her desires. Told in the third person, the book shifts between 1957 and 2018 to paint a fuller picture of the lives of Isabella and Gemma and how they relate. Though the information about old Hollywood may interest film buffs, excessive details about films, Oscar ceremonies, and actors slow down the narrative and do little to advance the plot. The 2018 strand is more engaging, but also moves slowly as Gemma attempts to work through her emotions, failing to make progress for much of the book. Even so, the novel includes interesting commentary on the ways that women have been hindered in Hollywood both before and since the emergence of the #MeToo movement, as well as the unfairness with which members of the industry have been treated across generations. The author does an admirable job of exploring the issue of what constitutes success while also pulling back the curtain on Hollywood’s longtime underbelly.
An unhurried tale about the flaws of the film industry and the healing power of human connection.Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780063422148
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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