A match made in heaven for fans of happily-ever-afters in all mediums.
A city girl travels to a small town in pursuit of her next big story but soon finds out that life isn’t anything like her favorite TV movies.
New York City native Adina Gellar is having a quarter-life crisis. She’s ready for the romanticized small-town life you find in Hallmark movies—the kind where grand gestures from hot volunteer firefighters are the norm. But for now, she’s living in an apartment with her mother, working as a barista and spin-class instructor while trying to score a byline in the pop-culture magazine Tea. While building her journalism portfolio, Adina cures her wanderlust with Million Dollar Listing reruns, where she learns about Pleasant Hollow. Real estate mogul Andrew Hanes has plans to rebrand the quaint town just 60 miles north of NYC by adding massive condominiums and a shopping mall. Hoping to rescue the small town’s charm from gentrification and get a full-time job offer, Adina pitches this real-life Hallmark story to Tea and gets the green light to cover the story. When she arrives in Pleasant Hollow, she has a meet-cute with the handsome Finn Adams and assumes he’s the charming nephew of the B&B’s owner until it’s revealed that he’s the project manager for the new development. Much to Adina’s dismay, Finn’s identity isn’t her only misconception; instead of resisting the new development, most of the townspeople actually want it. While Pleasant Hollow is unfortunately more hollow than pleasant, Adina is determined to complete her story, especially if it means getting to explore her undeniable chemistry with Finn. Die-hard Hallmark fans will appreciate mentions of Loveuary and Andrew Walker as well as some steamier moments in lieu of a pie-baking competition. Schorr adeptly portrays the problem of Adina's expectations versus reality while never belittling the perfectly predictable romances that Adina and so many others cherish: “Not many real-world relationships could survive if all their problems needed to be solved within two hours or 300 pages. Thankfully, we have the benefit of open-ended deadlines when it comes to love.”
A match made in heaven for fans of happily-ever-afters in all mediums.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-5476-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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
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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