An engrossing, touching novel, perfect for lovers of women’s fiction.
A young woman comes to terms with her psychic abilities and her family’s past in Levitt’s historical novel set in 1890s Missouri.
The women in Sarah Richardson’s family all possess the gift of clairvoyance—they can read moods via the color of another person’s “mist” and see into others’ pasts and presents. These gifts, and the uncomfortable secrets they reveal, have caused the Richardsons some difficulties. When Sarah’s sister Katherine develops a psychic bond with a woman being abused by her husband, Katherine’s attempt to intervene leads to disaster, and her father sends her to an asylum in St. Louis for her own safety (“Katherine’s pleading eyes were locked on mine as the woman placed the cloth into my sister’s mouth and tied it behind her head”). Years later, Sarah still carries guilt about the role she inadvertently played in the situation and moves to St. Louis hoping to reconcile with her sister. Initially, nothing turns out as Sarah hoped; Katherine rebuffs her, and Sarah develops feelings for a man engaged to a friend of hers. When Sarah encounters a timid woman named Norma, who has a dark mist, she realizes that their fates are intertwined and that she has been given a chance to redeem herself. Sarah is determined to help Norma escape her dangerous husband, no matter the cost. This is a passionate, heartwarming novel that effortlessly imbues its historical setting with elements of magical realism. Sarah goes on an inspiring journey as she tests her character, discovering what she believes in and what she’s willing to fight for. (A prominent thread throughout the story is the bond between women and how much stronger they are when they stand in solidarity with each other.) Moments that could have read as saccharine are conveyed with an honesty and elegance. Levitt draws a clear through-line between women’s political goals and their personal lives as Sarah and Katherine both join the local Women’s Equality Society. The dramatic ending stretches credulity a bit, but it’s emotionally satisfying enough to be forgiven.
An engrossing, touching novel, perfect for lovers of women’s fiction.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798885281157
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
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
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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