A well-developed, deftly plotted Cold War novel with a strong emotional center.
In Norsworthy’s historical novel, the Cold War U-2 spy plane incident provides the backdrop to a struggling marriage.
Americans Eleanor and Talbot meet in Florence just after World War II—Eleanor came to Italy to study sculpture in 1939 and got stuck when war broke out, and Talbot was there as part of a U.S. intelligence group within the U.S. Army. They eventually marry and move to Washington, D.C., where Talbot joins the CIA and Eleanor, unable to find work in the art world, settles for a job in the Arlington Public Library system. Fifteen years later, distance has grown between them, and while Eleanor turns a blind eye to Talbot’s numerous affairs, the cracks in their seemingly idyllic life start to show. On the night of Eleanor’s 40th birthday party, an operation led by Talbot goes badly awry when a surveillance plane is shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before Eisenhower and Khrushchev are scheduled to have peace talks. Talbot’s extramarital activities come back to haunt him, and a foundational plot twist midway through the novel completely shifts the narrative that readers thought they were following, to great effect. Amid the political intrigue, Norsworthy ensures the story’s focus remains on Eleanor and Talbot’s relationship; chapters written from both of their perspectives deepen the context of their relationship and add to the emotional stakes. The real-life events serving as a backdrop for the story are thoroughly researched, and the robust cast of supporting characters is brought to life in a vividly rendered historical setting (“Anxiety was high that the Soviets had more missiles and were building bombers so fast the United States would never catch up”). The narrative occasionally drags in the second half of the book, over-emphasizing the logistics of various aspects of spycraft employed by the CIA and the USSR, but overall, the pacing works effectively to keep readers invested and to take Talbot and Eleanor through realistic inner journeys as they contemplate the future of their marriage.
A well-developed, deftly plotted Cold War novel with a strong emotional center.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781685136949
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
