A heartfelt, page-turning tale that effectively stands on its own while also living up to its predecessor.
Bobbitt offers a post-apocalyptic sequel about the surviving residents of Cedar Key, Florida, as they defend their home island and disappearing way of life.
Roughly a year after the nuclear meltdown that precipitated the events of Godspeed, Cedar Key (2024),the remaining few hundred residents of the titular locale—about a quarter of its former population—are slowly rebuilding their economy and infrastructure. Despite damage from nuclear fallout and extreme weather, the locals have managed to start breeding chickens again and have even mastered using slow-burning wood to create fuel for cars and boats. Although the once-central clamming industry is no longer viable, some fauna have returned to the island, including a bounty of white shrimp. The story opens with the marriage of Cedar Key’s Luke Buck to a woman named Kinsey from Sumner, on the mainland. Their wedding symbolizes a tenuous peace between the two communities, who came to blows over old grudges and dwindling resources in the early days of the “new world.” As it happens, the wedding isn’t the only cause for celebration, because Col. Robert McCloud—long assumed dead—returns in a dramatic crash landing after more than a year on the mainland. Sent out from Cedar Key for reconnaissance, the colonel was shot down in the wilds of Florida, surviving only by using his old Marine Corps training. He discovers in short order that he was shot down by Isaac Skipjack, a known entity on the island and the son of Buddy Skipjack, a fisherman who was caught stealing clams in the late 1990s and later died in the back of a police car. Now, years later, Isaac is leading a Coast Guard ship full of other mainlanders, with violence on his mind.
Bobbitt’s follow-up to his debut offers a reading experience that many readers will find similar to that of the first installment, which is a very good thing. Like its predecessor, this novel brims with characters whose attachments to one another feel real and carry emotional weight. For example, Mark David—a Cedar Key fisherman and the father of young mayor Hayes David—took young Isaac in years ago, but the boy soon discovered that Mark may have been involved in his biological father’s death. In addition, the author’s expertise about the culture and geography of the part of the country in which the series is set makes for a richly detailed, authentic-feeling read: “When the bay is glassy calm, and the tide is low, it’s easy for the farmer to think big thoughts about what everything means, to find allegory in a diving cormorant, metaphor in the interplay of light and water.” Such vivid prose abounds in these pages, and the action scenes studded throughout the narrative—most especially, the gun and naval battles in which characters on both sides of the conflict fight and die—make for a propulsive narrative through which readers will be happy to travel.
A heartfelt, page-turning tale that effectively stands on its own while also living up to its predecessor.Pub Date: June 7, 2025
ISBN: 9798218668853
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Aphroditois Books
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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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