A fun, frenetic, and overly ambitious yarn about finding purpose in a sea of tangled intentions.
In Franco’s novel, a South Asian man seeks personal rejuvenation as a spiritual traveler.
It’s 2014, and despite his hilariously smug, egocentric attitude, Richard Parker remains a struggling journalist at New Delhi’s Indian Republic newspaper. Not content with just writing articles, the busy bachelor also moonlights as the entrepreneurial CEO of Cow 'n' Roots, a business that outsources the sale of sun-dried organic cow waste products at a 300 percent profit margin. A botched media spectacle meant to expose a local unscrupulous kingpin results in his swift and unceremonious termination. Jobless, with a destroyed career, Parker temporarily retreats to his native village seeking to change his life’s path through enlightenment and take a “passage into sainthood” through a pilgrimage with seven others. This spiritual cleansing journey is just one in a series of false starts toward reenergizing his broken spirit. Heavily immersed in Hindu spiritualism, tradition, culture, and doctrine, Parker’s sojourns guide the narrative through several holy stops as “RP Saamy” (Parker’s spiritual pseudonym) and his fellow seekers are dazzled by the temples of gods and goddesses. Parker soon gives up on the pilgrimage, however, and falls for a lovely girl named Chandini, admitting that “my enthusiasm tanks, but my hormones don’t.” These misadventures and setbacks form the bulk of Franco’s rollicking, densely populated narrative. Bonds are quickly formed and broken as Parker searches for love, belonging, and meaning throughout dizzying months spent in India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. The novel’s length becomes an issue as Parker’s wearying mishaps, spiritual tribulations, Tinder dates, and the onslaught of peripheral characters and prophesizing shamans eventually run out of steam. Still, he’s an engrossing, if self-absorbed, personality to observe—Franco excels at keen characterization and effervescent dialogue. The globetrotting, vibrant, culturally rich adventures of Richard Parker are hard to resist.
A fun, frenetic, and overly ambitious yarn about finding purpose in a sea of tangled intentions.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 979-8223473961
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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