Warm, cozy yuletide fare.
A brokenhearted man sees no reason to live in this Christmas tale of hope and healing.
In 2014, Paul Wanless and his wife, Rachel, attend a Christmas pageant in which their 7-year-old son, Jaxon, plays one of the Wise Men. Paul drives home separately and learns that his beloved family has just been killed by a drunk driver. Three years later, Paul, a diabetic, decides to end his life with whiskey and insulin. But a stranger named Gabriel invites himself into the house and persuades Paul that he needs to keep living. Gabriel—surely the angel—shows up at several pivotal moments, just long enough to save Paul from complete disaster. “Sometimes the path to heaven begins in hell,” Gabriel says. Later, Paul meets a sweet widow named Collette, and the attraction is mutual. But he endures a deep reservoir of pain that might make it impossible to get on with his life. She, too, has suffered loss, having witnessed her husband die from ALS. Then one day, Paul rescues 9-year-old Ronald from a beating several bullies are giving him outside of school. Ronald’s divorced mother stays home drinking herself into a stupor, and his father is out of the picture, so Paul tries to help the boy as much as a non-relative can. Three sympathetic characters, three broken lives—can they ever recover? And if Paul were to fall in love again, would that betray Rachel? An answer will come, but first, people must see through their pain and hurt to get to the other side. Now Christmas is fast approaching, and Paul had been an avid “Christmasphile” until his tragedy. The three characters’ storylines weave a holiday tapestry culminating—when else?—on a snowy Christmas Day. Indeed, all the story elements come together in a bright, neat bow as though left under the tree by Santa. There are a few eye-rollers having to do with Paul’s generosity, as well as a fact that would be a spoiler to reveal. Gabriel is believable, though. He’s just an angel doing his job.
Warm, cozy yuletide fare.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781668014905
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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