A spy novel that has moments of brilliance but inspires incredulity more than excitement.
A Lutheran pastor attempts to expose the persecution of Christians in Iran.
Stephen Grant isn’t your typical Lutheran pastor—he’s also a former Navy SEAL and CIA agent who still accepts clandestine missions for the United States. Grant realizes the absurdity of his life, one which only makes sense in the cinematic world of action adventures: “There aren’t too many of my fellow Lutheran pastors who wind up in the situations that I do.” Sometimes, Grant’s missions come directly from President Adam Links, to whom Grant serves as a kind of spiritual adviser. An organization Grant works with—the Lutheran Response to Christian Persecution—produces a documentary exposing the brutal persecution of Christians by the Iranian government. In order to uncover the prison where Christians are being held and rescue its victims, Grant joins forces with Caldwell, Driessen and McEnany International Strategies and Security, a firm led by Paige Caldwell, a former CIA partner and romantic flame. Paige is now secretly engaged to President Links. In the aftermath of their successful mission, the crew is invited to Jordan to meet with its royal family—the recently crowned King Salama seems eager to showcase his own progressive brand of Muslim nationalism and make common cause against Iran. However, internecine disputes within the royal family eventually endanger Grant and his colleagues, a predicament lucidly portrayed by Keating. The plot is vigorously paced, crammed with vividly depicted action and drama. And despite its convolutions—there are simply too many entangled subplots—the reader is never lost in this accessible tale of international intrigue. Yet the novel is also a tapestry of pulp paperback tropes as implausible as they are formulaic—only within this peculiar genre of popular literature does one find caricatures like Grant. A lack of believability makes the latest installment of a running series a bit of a chore.
A spy novel that has moments of brilliance but inspires incredulity more than excitement.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2022
ISBN: 9798356500374
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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