This beautifully assured novel interweaves the ghostly and the historical until both feel simultaneously real and imagined.
A tense, atmospheric gothic thriller set in an indeterminate city centers on two women, a Muslim servant and her British employer, in the aftermath of World War I.
When Soraya Matas secures a place with Mrs. Alice Hattingh of 23 Heron Place, she feels fortunate, especially after leaving her previous employment with the Edenburgs due to the husband’s unwelcome advances. Soraya’s family, including several younger siblings and parents who depend on her income, lives in the Quarter—a crowded and underserved area of a city that resembles Cape Town, South Africa. Like their neighbors, Soraya’s family follows a faith different from their colonizers; her father is a calligrapher who specializes in the rakams, or handwritten prayers that grace local homes. Mrs. Hattingh lets Soraya know of her prejudices, asking if the young woman can crochet: “I’m sure you have your people’s nimble fingers.” Soon after Soraya enters the room in which she’ll sleep, she knows that it’s haunted by a Gray Woman, a specter filled with rage and disappointment that she’s been able to see since childhood; in this case, she’s convinced it’s her unfortunate predecessor, Fatima. Although she finds her work dull and repetitive, Soraya initially enjoys the relative peace of Heron Place, especially as she’s able to return home once a fortnight. But Mrs. Hattingh grows peevish when she anticipates her son Timothy’s visit from England and orders Soraya to stay put. As a sop, she dangles the promise of writing letters to her servant’s betrothed, Nour, who is working on a farm in order to save money for teacher’s college. Both women are holding back information, which makes for a perfect storm of fury—yet there is no question that Alice Hattingh’s sins are greater and more destructive, even if driven by tragedy. This novel will remind readers that our world has been interconnected for a long time, and that the powerful affect those less so, even when there are oceans between them.
This beautifully assured novel interweaves the ghostly and the historical until both feel simultaneously real and imagined.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781668090732
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.
A dark fantasy set on the Yale campus ends with a bang.
Galaxy “Alex” Stern of Lethe House, one of Yale’s storied secret societies, has been to hell and back. That was in Hell Bent (2023), the middle book in Bardugo’s Ninth House trilogy, where the secret societies wield not just temporal power but magic as well. Hell Bent ended with Alex and her friends rescuing her crush, mentor, and fellow Lethe officer, Daniel “Darlington” Arlington V, from eternal torment. One small wrinkle: The demon Golgarot used Alex’s blood to wedge a door open between Hell and New Haven, and his minions are slipping through. Also, one of the group has turned into a vampire, and Darlington is now half demon. “He’d given up some part of himself to preserve the rest of his human soul. He’d become both prisoner and warden.” As the final book opens, the exhausted crew are hunting yet another monster. They can’t keep this up forever; they will have to find a way to close the portal. Alex has the energetic, driven melancholy of the hard-boiled, dark fantasy heroine she is. She believes “magic is real, but safe is make-believe,” as her roommate puts it. An open hellmouth, a supportive scholar, a vampire whose story arcs precariously toward redemption, a gentleman fiend who gets literally horny when aroused, a California girl with rare supernatural powers who cracks wise as she fights fiends—the series has a lot in common with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spawn, but Bardugo’s way with words and her keen social observation keep the book from feeling derivative. A demon’s classic New England house is decorated with “ruthlessly inoffensive watercolor seascapes”; Lethe’s board president “wore the new uniform of Wall Street: a dress shirt, khakis, and a fleece with a Yale Y embroidered over the heart, as if he were on his way to a hostile takeover followed by some light rock climbing.” Will Alex and her friends get the door shut without losing Darlington? Bardugo injects her protagonist with such a convincing mix of cynicism and hope that failure seems like a distinct possibility.
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781250884312
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
The queen of social activist novels has done it again. Impressive, important, and fun to read.
The World Trade Center attacks are at the center of an intricate, twisty family drama spanning decades in both directions.
“You could brace for your sister to die of a terminal illness, only to have your healthy sibling killed in a random car wreck. You could carry a baby safely to term and then, on a bright blue day in September, walk into a building that collapsed beneath your feet.” Or you could be a character in a Jodi Picoult novel and face all of the above and much, much more. Fans of My Sister’s Keeper (2004) will notice a reference to that novel in the preceding quote and be glad to hear a character from that book is back. During the Covid-19 pandemic, former teenage delinquent Jesse Fitzgerald, now a detective on the Providence, Rhode Island, police force, meets Molly Ambrose, a 19-year-old prodigy who runs the state’s emergency preparedness and response program. “Despite the fact that there were fifteen years between us and we both had enough baggage to fill a cargo hold,” as Molly puts it, the two fall madly in love. The baggage she’s referring to includes, on her side, a mother who died on 9/11 when Molly was less than three months old. Picoult supplies her signature delightful banter and gift for depicting passion and romance to win the reader’s sympathy for this possibly questionable match between dedicated public servants, whose favorite game at bedtime is “Who can think of the most terrifying worst-case scenario?” Very little more can be revealed without spoilers, but trigger warnings for this book would be a long list indeed, ranging from suicide and filicide to rape and mental illness (welcome to Picoultland!). Subplots visit evangelical and Navajo cultures as well as the ins and outs of polygraphy. Make sure to read the afterword in which Picoult explains her real-life sources of inspiration.
The queen of social activist novels has done it again. Impressive, important, and fun to read.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9780593726259
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
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