An entertaining and informative tale about Irish life and the coming of the English at the end of the Middle Ages.
Duffy provides a tale of survival set in tumultuous 12-century Ireland.
A teenager lives with his enslaved father, who teaches him the language and stories of his ancestors. In 1171, Alberic’s life changes when he undertakes tasks that, in the eyes of those around him, prove his courage; he successfully retrieves a powerful stone called a kelt for Mánus, and on a raid into the land of the lord’s enemy, he kills his first man. He also falls in love with Ness, a woman captured during the raid. Later, Alberic is captured by English invaders who’d been making their way north, and he finds himself caught between the people who enslaved him and those who share his ancestry. The English Baron de Lacy grows to trust him and sends him north to help conquer Mánus’ province. Alberic fights for the baron but attempts to protect civilians. Duffy bases his story on true historical events of the Norman conquest of Ireland, although Alberic himself is fictional. However, his work provides an engaging story that a nonfiction work could not; historians know little of the lives of people like Alberic, so it is a treat to immerse oneself in Duffy’s conjectures. It’s a gritty, unpredictable, and violent world that also has moments of beauty (“a bright, many-tongued stream, running thin over the stone, had cut in beneath an overhanging tree, the deep water beneath a shelter for speckled fish”), poetry, and even references to magic. Duffy provides a glossary of Gaelic, Latin, Norse, and Middle English and character lists, but some readers may still become frustrated by the frequency of unfamiliar terms and names; Alberic narrates his story in a manner that’s believable enough to pull the reader along.
An entertaining and informative tale about Irish life and the coming of the English at the end of the Middle Ages.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 9781947976344
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Cynren Press
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2023
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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