Sometimes-grim but ultimately hopeful stories of redemption.
A magical New York City cafe helps people reconcile with their struggles in this collection of two novellas by Plakcy.
In the first story, “Code of Silence,” Jeff,a software developer,watches his life gradually unravel after he breaks up with his beloved girlfriend, Madeline. Struggling with insecurity and his overbearing father’s expectations, he has trouble keeping a job or maintaining a steady romantic relationship. One day, he finds himself alone, desperate, and living in a hotel. A chance encounter with a golden retriever named Cooper leads him to the Smiling Dog Café and its owner, Betty, and his conversations with her allow him to confront his memories of his ex, understand his fears, and find a path forward—with a little help from Betty’s magical powers. Cooper, for instance, is actually a painting of a dog that she’s brought to life, and the cafe’s furniture and music transform memories into therapeutic experiences. In this way, the novella effectivelytakes readers on Jeff's journey from isolation and self-doubt to self-acceptance and hope. The second novella, “A Mother’s Heart,” does something similar; it features Sophia Greenwood, a single mother whose 9-year-old daughter, Emma, is diagnosed with a genetic heart condition. Painful memories of her own mother’sbattle with heart disease haunt Sophia, and as she navigates Emma’s difficult treatment, she calls on memories of women who raised her after her globetrotting mom’s death. Each caregiver—Keiko-san in Tokyo, Lakshmi in Mumbai, Marie-Claude in Paris, and Isabella in Rio—taught Sophia different ways of coping with grief. Sophia ultimately also ends up at the Smiling Dog Café, and its magic helps her to embrace a legacy of love and strength, passed down through generations of women. These two heartfelt, crisply written novellas wear their sadness on their sleeve and take their earnest messages of healing seriously. A reference to Michael Cunningham’s bestselling novel The Hours (1998) points to Plakcy’s clear intentions; at their best, these stories tackle their characters’ suffering with skill.
Sometimes-grim but ultimately hopeful stories of redemption.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9798305779912
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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