A pulpy, imperfect sendup of moviemaking.
An American actor attempts to survive a chaotic South American movie shoot in Litchfield’s novel.
Dominic Graves’ career in Hollywood is not going as he’d hoped. The actor is now in his 30s, and good roles are hardly rolling in. (His most recent job was an ad for a car dealership.) When his disreputable agent Bernie Finkelman offers him the lead in a Uruguayan thriller, Dominic has little choice but to say yes and fly off for the 10-week shoot in Montevideo. There, the problems begin almost immediately. By the time he makes it to his first day of shooting—hungover and several hours late—he’s already slept with his gorgeous coworker, Sofía Prodova, and insulted her enough for her to beat him unconscious with an ashtray. Dominic then has to survive long days under the whip of the demanding and volatile director Ignacio Martinez, who is happy to put his actors in danger if it results in a better shot. “Death on a film set often turns a decent performance into a legendary one,” he tells Dominic ominously. Ignacio has his own longstanding and explosive relationship with Sofía, one that Dominic will have to navigate if he wants to end up in the final cut of A Bullet for Silver Face. (That is, assuming Dominic doesn’t actually have to take any bullets to his face.) Litchfield writes with sardonic vigor, capturing Dominic’s general distaste for his situation: “Bullets, explosions and bare-knuckle fistfights were continual, disconcerting distractions, and trying to remember lines while worried about being blown to smithereens was an eternal challenge.” But the reader struggles to sympathize with Dominic, who pours whiskey into his morning coffee and surprises his one-night stands with unwanted sexual maneuvers that make him feel powerful. The fact that all three of the main characters are both charmless and irredeemable keeps the book from being as funny—or as suspenseful—as Litchfield might have intended.
A pulpy, imperfect sendup of moviemaking.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781732332867
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Lowestoft Chronicle Press
Review Posted Online: March 25, 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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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