Requires sophistication and patience beyond the reach of the ordinary reader.
Three ways of looking at a bizarre and prescient story of political assassination.
“I’m a thirty-two-year-old sex worker who just killed a politician on what I thought were the orders of the American government. Here’s your chance to catch me before I become a scapegoat, a punching bag, or a monster who needs reputation restitution. Please, please, please turn me into a feminist antihero.” Murder Bimbo, as she describes herself in the email quoted above, addressing a podcast host named Justice Bimbo, may not sound ripped from the headlines, but her victim, Meat Neck, is eerily familiar. Young, handsome, claiming his is “a new kind of conservatism,” he is anathema to the queer community, particularly the narrator’s desperately missed ex-girlfriend, aka X. “Is there a bigger act of love than murder?” wonders the accidental assassin after perpetrating Meat Neck’s demise—at which point he becomes the subject of a special four-part series called Killing Baby Hitler: Meat Neck and the Making of an American Folk Hero. It’s amazing to think that all this was written long before Charlie Kirk was killed. That is intriguing in and of itself, but whirling around those provocative plot elements is a fractured narrative that will tax many readers’ comprehension and patience. Structured in three acts which continually reshape the identities of the characters and the details of the events surrounding the murder, the drama screeches to a halt with an epilogue that navigates back toward a more conventional storyline. Or maybe not. By the end of the book, one’s brains are so thoroughly scrambled that one can only stare at the author’s bio—Novack is a mother of two with a masters in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School, living with her husband and children in the Hudson Valley! Surely this is the final plot twist.
Requires sophistication and patience beyond the reach of the ordinary reader.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781668214619
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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