A plot-heavy, politically tinged novel about love, loss, and connection.
In Fanning’s novel, three characters navigate a tumultuous summer in Birmingham.
Jake Taylor has just lost his boyfriend of six years, Tom, in a car accident. In addition to being the love of his life, Tom was the primary breadwinner, and Tom’s sister—who blames Jake for Tom’s death—quickly evicts him from Tom’s apartment. The mourning, middle-aged Jake is forced to move back in with his elderly mother and father, the latter of whom is slipping quickly into Alzheimer’s. Vicky Harper is a Black, trans introvert whose workaholic tendencies have elevated her to the position of senior partner at her law firm. She prefers to keep people at arm’s length, and her “self-curated Ice Queen reputation” means she can usually “make do with nodded greetings and avoid the casual chit-chat.” When she receives an anonymous voice message threatening her over one of her cases, however, she realizes how vulnerable she truly is. Lucy Penrose, one of Jake’s oldest friends, is wrapped up in planning her wedding to her Canadian boyfriend Colin after a whirlwind romance. Unfortunately, her father—a famed author and television host known for uncovering scams—is suspicious of Colin’s intentions and demands a prenup. What’s more, it seems like Colin’s family may have ties to the Canadian far right. As the three characters’ stories overlap and intertwine, an enemy emerges that threatens not only the them but potentially all of British society. Fanning’s prose is simple but filled with deeply human moments, like when Jake goes out to visit his father in his tool shed after the man has been found wandering the town. “He might not know who you are,” his mother warns him. “It doesn’t mean he’s forgotten. Not really.” The three main characters are not quite as engaging as the plots that surround them, but the stakes are such that the reader is happy to root for them as they attempt to outwit their antagonists.
A plot-heavy, politically tinged novel about love, loss, and connection.Pub Date: June 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781739290399
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Spring Street Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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