A vibrant hybrid of historical and contemporary fiction.
In Callaghan’s novel, a middle-aged woman uncovers a secret in the backyard of a newly acquired heritage home that reveals a sweeping Civil War-era drama.
In the early 2020s, San Francisco Bay Area transplant Iris Pearl and her husband, Benny, have recently purchased a home in rural Pennsylvania whose history dates to the early 1800s. The house has been left to disintegrate over the years, so it requires a total renovation to its structure and the surrounding land. One day, workers uncover a mysterious sack while refurbishing a once-charming backyard pond. Inside is the perfectly preserved corpse of a baby who’s been dead for more than a century. The discovery gets publicity, resulting in outside visitors to the site. Soon, Iris and Benny are forced to confront the realities of a tragic history as they uncover the truth about “Little John Doe.” Running parallel to their story is a romance set during the Civil War, and in the same house. Irish maid Aoife has married William Sprigett and settled into the gracious farmhouse not far from William’s grand family estate, where she once worked. The new couple’s wedded bliss is cut short when war breaks out, and William decides to enlist in the Union Army. With only her husband’s hired farmhand, Thomas Walker, to help, Aoife must draw on her own strength to maintain the farm in her husband’s absence. Aoife, who’s white, and Thomas, who’s Black, become close, which becomes the subject of gossip by members of the surrounding community. Their story launches an epic tale that effectively connects with the Iris and Benny’s 21st-century storyline. Callaghan’s attention to historical accuracy is impressive throughout, and this extends to the parts of the narrative that take place in the modern era, in which the author offers sharp insights into life during the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, this novel deftly shepherds multiple storylines as they slowly bend toward one another in unexpected and ultimately satisfying ways. What results is an engaging epic about loss, loneliness, and desire that perfectly encapsulates relatable human struggles.
A vibrant hybrid of historical and contemporary fiction.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Empower Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.
And now for some lessons in poetry and typesetting.
After Lessons in Chemistry (2022), a debut that became one of the most popular books of recent years, Garmus applies her unique comic sensibility to the story of Batter Gray, a man named after a family dog of mythic talents. A poetry maven who was reading Auden as a fourth grader, he was raised by a type-designer mother and historian father who dearly hoped he would choose some more viable profession than poetry. But via an amazing stroke of luck, he lands a job after college at Peck & Peck, an illustrious literary journal located in a beautiful building in New York City. He’s at the very bottom of the complex and dysfunctional totem pole, making copies in the basement, struggling not to run afoul of the cantankerous editor-in-chief, Salton Peck, or his smarmy assistant, Dexter York, both of whom have taken an instant dislike to our hero (and can never get his name right. Few people can). And to be honest, Batter is not without his flaws. The novel bogs down a bit in the middle, with Salton constantly excoriating his staff in ALL CAPS and much ado over the possibility that submissions have been taken outside the building, which is forbidden. Along the way, many, many famous poets are name-checked, as are many typefaces, since Batter has been raised to instantly identify a font in the wild. The best example of this occurs during his brief sojourn in jail: “The thing I kind of admired about Motherfucker II, besides his manners, was this huge tattoo he had on his neck that read I will fuck you up in ITC Bolt. Call me my mother’s son, but whoever inked it nailed the kerning.” The narrative picks up steam toward the end, as bad guys become good guys, mysteries are solved, and Batter throws one hell of a party.
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781668251065
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
© 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.
