An atmospheric tale that deftly captures the leisure and egos of its expensive spa setting.
A group of frustrated women tries to savor a luxury spa with an uncertain future in this debut novel.
For the past 25 years, Nadia Demidova has been the director of Lavender Lane in Palm Springs, California, one of the world’s most exclusive spas. She likes to observe her guests arriving from behind the two-way mirror in her office—she can always pick out the difficult ones. The clients for the current 10-day session may be just that: Mavis Perkins, an ex-model married to one of the wealthiest men in Chicago; Charlotte Tanner, an overweight Texas housewife accompanied by her sex-curious teenage daughter, Lauren; Toni Etheridge, a former fashion buyer; and Dr. Eleanor Franklin, the CEO of a nutritional company who is hiding out after a plastic surgery gone awry. The session gets off to a rocky start, but with the help of her assistant director, Phoebe Bancroft, Nadia soon has the clients making friends and swapping sob stories over healthy dinners and relaxing beautification treatments. Then Nadia dies suddenly of a heart attack, and the spa’s future is up in the air. Phoebe hopes that she can run it herself, but when Nadia’s handsome and eligible son, Peter Culvane, arrives, the competition begins to see who can snag the bachelor—and the spa along with him. Melhado’s prose is smooth and sybaritic, giving one the sense of reading a novel set inside a series of glossy magazine ads: “Peter Culvane admired the rich patina and clean lines of his Biedermeier credenza as he sipped coffee from an old mug. He certainly had access to the best china money could buy, but somehow coffee always tasted better in the chipped and discolored Stamford classic he had used since college days.” The plot is fairly low stakes—one storyline revolves heavily around a quince-scented face cream—and everything wraps up in a neat way, just as readers will expect. Even so, the author manages to achieve a mostly satisfying mix of humor, sexual tension, female friendship, and spiritual rejuvenation.
An atmospheric tale that deftly captures the leisure and egos of its expensive spa setting.Pub Date: May 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68433-464-3
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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