Women’s lives presented without apology or sugar-coating.
In Shah’s perceptive debut, a lifetime friendship between two Indian women is traced over the years and across oceans.
Twelve-year-old Deepa Jain and Ruchi Mehta meet at a Catholic girls’ school in India in 1962 when Ruchi transfers in after classes have started. Deepa takes the poorer and less worldly Ruchi under her wing to help her acclimate. The push-and-pull nature of their lifelong friendship develops early as Ruchi enjoys academic success, evoking feelings of jealousy in Deepa. By their older teens, a subtle but undeniable sexual attraction grows between the girls but is never discussed. Deepa marries and emigrates to the United States with her doctor husband. At her suggestion, Ruchi follows her to Connecticut, accompanied by her own husband, an engineer. The women’s friendship follows a tortuous course in their new home, complicated by differences in class and material success with Ruchi settling for a modest house and Deepa enjoying a more upscale home and, eventually, a beach house, too. Shah clearly and sensitively draws the awkwardness created by the disparities between the pair’s aspirations, ways of life, and economic privilege. The women’s disparate paths—Ruchi works in Deepa’s husband’s medical practice in order to make ends meet while Deepa dabbles at creating a cultural center for their expatriate community—are reflected in the lives of the growing group of Indian émigrés surrounding them. Shah highlights their differing choices in mothering, as well, through Deena’s hands-off approach to her daughter and Ruchi’s solicitude toward her son. When a moral quandary presents itself to one of the women—the resolution of which will have a huge impact upon the other—the complications presented by a lifetime of love, longing, and rivalry continue to haunt the friends. Shah deftly delivers a story full of parallelisms and contrasts in which the prickly humanity of her main characters is never softened.
Women’s lives presented without apology or sugar-coating.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781639733002
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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