An engrossing and measured novel of wartime.
A bloody American Civil War battle drives a handful of characters into unexpected situations in Gram’s historical novel.
It’s December 1862, and Rev. Nathaniel of Fredericksburg, Virginia, predicts that the Apocalypse will occur after a battle that’s about to commence. The ensuing clash, which will henceforth be known as the Battle of Fredericksburg, leaves many dead, and people in the city find different purposes elsewhere in the days and months that follow. Enslaved John, for example, heads north to freedom while lamenting the fact that he’s never known his sister, Tillie, who remains enslaved; the siblings were separated long ago. After Nathaniel’s apparently incorrect prediction, the reverend tracks down a young woman at a brothel with the apparent intent of removing her from there; he’s guided by a mysterious, blond-haired young girl who shows him visions. The cast of characters also includes a talisman-carrying religious zealot who believes that Armageddon is at hand, and someone who’s out for lethal revenge. Fate ultimately brings together these storylines, which travel through such places as Richmond and New York City before a series of not-necessarily-happy reunions. Gram enriches the tale with real-life historical figures and details. High-ranking Civil War soldiers, for starters, play significant roles (one person is convinced that Confederate officer Stonewall Jackson “will be revealed as Christ come again”), and famed steamboat Mary Powell makes a notable appearance. A largely unhurried pace makes it easy to follow the nonlinear narrative, which bounces around December 1862 and subsequent months in 1863. There’s likewise a giant leap backward to the second century near the city of Pepouza in Asia Minor, where 14-year-old Montanus learns that some have foreseen the Messiah returning one day. Throughout, Gram delivers several affecting scenes that confront the horrific treatment of enslaved people, and the ferocious Battle of Fredericksburg and its terrible deaths. The novel boasts a gratifying resolution, although a second volume is planned.
An engrossing and measured novel of wartime.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781960090355
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Epigraph Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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