An entertaining and informative work of historical fiction with a strong female protagonist.
A revised edition of Wells’ 2010 aeronautical adventure novel, set in the mid-1930s during an exciting period of aviation design and technological development.
As the novel opens, 20-something Maggie Rockwell, an experienced horse rider, is preparing for a breathtaking stunt that she’s about to perform for a Hollywood movie. While racing on her horse, chased by Old West villains, she’s to escape by grabbing a ladder dangling from an airplane flown by her rescuer. Piloting the plane is Luke Whitney, a decorated World War I aviator, stunt pilot, and veteran of the aeronautical Bendix Trophy Race from New York to Los Angeles. He’s also been giving Maggie lessons in stunt flying, and she has her heart set on entering this year’s Bendix Race, which has just reopened to women, who were barred from the race for several years. Maggie is determined to win, but she needs money, a plane, and a sponsor. Meanwhile, Fernando Underwood, an aeronautical engineering student, stable manager, and polo instructor extraordinaire, is working at the racetrack near the film-shoot location. He’s a handsome, multitalented man of mystery who’s working to pay his way through college; before long, his and Maggie’s paths cross, and a romance ensues. Wells’ novel was inspired by the actual 1936 Bendix Trophy Race, which was won for the first time by two women (Louise Thaden and Blanche Wilcox Noyes). The relationship between Maggie and Fernando adds a tender, engaging touch to the proceedings. However, the novel’s main strength rests in the explicit descriptions of the new Staggerwing biplane that Maggie pilots during the race—a revolutionary design that positions the front end of the bottom wing ahead of the top. There are also spectacular depictions of life-threatening situations that Bendix Trophy competitors encounter, as well as a virtual primer on polo’s exciting aspects. However, Wells does tend to repeat information, such as Fernando’s backstory, and his prose is too often filled with superlatives: “Both of her greatest flying dreams were being fulfilled, and her joy and enthusiasm were boundless.” Still, aviation enthusiasts will appreciate the abundant aeronautical details.
An entertaining and informative work of historical fiction with a strong female protagonist.Pub Date: April 28, 2025
ISBN: 9798991258401
Page Count: 331
Publisher: Patagonia
Review Posted Online: June 6, 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
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
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