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A GIRL AND HER DOG AND ME

An intriguing, polarizing tale about a man facing a new life after doing the unforgivable.

A sardonically zany debut novel focuses on a man who kills his girlfriend’s dog—and suffers the consequences.

As Stetz’s book opens, Brian and Amanda are living together in San Diego and seem perfectly happy, with only one little six-pound problem: Boo Boo, Amanda’s beloved dog. Amanda is devoted to Boo Boo, buys him noise-canceling headphones, and fixes him gourmet meals. Although this doesn’t stop her from having a healthy personal and sexual relationship with Brian, it takes up a large amount of her attention. Brian feels like an interloper in his own relationship, and, to make matters worse, he’s convinced that Boo Boo likes to torment him. So one day when Amanda is out shopping and Brian discovers that Boo Boo has pooped in one of his shoes, he impulsively grabs the dog and hurls him through the patio door to the backyard. The problem? The patio door is still closed (“Damn window washers; they’re good”). Boo Boo dies, and Brian is faced with the horrible prospect of telling Amanda. Almost immediately, he decides to begin “the lie parade” and cover up what he’s done, but it ends up being useless. Once Amanda begins telling her story to the world, explosions start going off in Brian’s life. He loses his job and seems permanently blacklisted from finding another; he becomes an infamous figure on social media and in the news; he’s attacked by former flings and accused of further monstrosities; and he’s eventually charged for the killing of Boo Boo and must find a lawyer and face a trial. Along the way, he’s got to deal with the fact that he is now a societal villain.

Stetz’s decision to refrain from making the philandering, callous, self-absorbed, dog-murdering Brian in any way a sympathetic character at first seems counterintuitive, particularly given the book’s slyly dark final twist. The decision takes the normal machinery of the redemption arc narrative and tilts it off-center in interesting ways. As his life slowly, systematically falls apart, Brian encounters strata of society he’d never experienced before, from prison (where a canine killer is scorned even by men who beat their wives) and the courtroom to the shadowy world of dogfighting in the American South (disgraced former NFL quarterback and convicted dogfight impresario Michael Vick comes up more than once in the book). Throughout all of this, Brian is never likable, and the narrative tone surrounding him—that in the final analysis, what he did to Boo Boo doesn’t really warrant all the subsequent fuss, and that the extent of that ruckus is the novel’s comic heart—will leave no readers doubting where they stand. Dog lovers who don’t find the subject at all funny, particularly when the work’s broader narrative never condemns the crime, might not stick around to follow Brian’s adventures. Other readers will doubtless appreciate the quippy dark humor Stetz deploys effectively alongside some more serious insights into human nature. “I was hurting,” Brian thinks at one point. “You do weird things when you hurt. You look to ease the pain.” None of these insights will bridge the divide for readers who consider Brian irredeemable, but for others, this dark farce will provide amusement.

An intriguing, polarizing tale about a man facing a new life after doing the unforgivable.

Pub Date: April 29, 2025

ISBN: 9798218655815

Page Count: 393

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: June 20, 2025

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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THE ACADEMY

A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.

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A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!

Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.

A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025

ISBN: 9780316567855

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

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CIRCLE OF DAYS

Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.

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A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.

In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.

Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025

ISBN: 9781538772775

Page Count: 704

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

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