An eloquent, emotional historical novel with a charged critique of society’s double standards.
In Bernhard’s novel, a high-class brothel owner in 1868 fights to save her establishment from New York City’s political machine.
This novel brims with the defining images of the Gilded Age, from the brazen corruption that passed for public affairs to the rampant inequality that limited opportunities for the great majority of people. Such barriers are familiar to Nell “Doc” Hastings, operator of the titular house catering to New York’s “richest, most discerning men.” It’s a cozy arrangement that’s built to last forever for the price of monthly payoffs to the Tammany Hall political machine. Nell can offer her girls protection from enslavement rings and a realistic path to independence, and she can provide well-connected players, such as city chamberlain Peter Sweeny, ways to indulge their wildest fantasies without tarnishing their glossy public façades. However, the appearance of Lavinia “Vivie” Curtis—a 15-year-old daughter of a lawmaker who was kidnapped from a party months ago and brought to the Double after suffering horrific abuses—threatens to upend this comfortable system. Nell uses all her hard-won medical experience to help Vivie recover physically and mentally. However, Nell must decide what to do about her presence there, amid threats from Tammany Hall, whose denizens want Nell to allow gambling, and enslavers like Vivie’s abuser, Vernon Trent, who vow to ramp up their practices. It’s an epic conflict, resulting in a novel that will pull readers into Nell’s struggles. It’s populated with well-drawn characters, including Nell's chief antagonists, Trent and ward boss Benno O’Connor; and newspaperman Asa Vanderpoel, with whom she must forge an uneasy alliance to expose the enslavers’ ways. Periodic flashbacks to Nell’s struggles with rape and other physical abuse, and her frustrations as she dreams of a medical career, help to round out the narrative. Overall, it’s a richly nuanced exploration of a society that championed the moral superiority of women yet refused to treat them as equals.
An eloquent, emotional historical novel with a charged critique of society’s double standards.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9798896360520
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2025
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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