A gritty, nuanced dramatization of the roots of American land ownership and political power.
A Virginia planter navigates a deadly landscape of colonial wealth and power in Keller’s debut historical novel.
In mid-18th century Virginia, Isaac Spotswood is raised on his family’s plantation, where his ambitious father forces him to work alongside the slaves to build character. They may not retain their baronet ancestor’s title, but the Spotswoods have something more valuable: land. “Wealth comes from land, not titles,” Isaac’s father insists. “We’re landowners…something you must always remember. The tenants work for us. The village belongs to us. Our presence is why they are here, to serve our needs. If we went away, all this would vanish.” Isaac gets a taste of the planter’s life when his father sends him to manage their property along Gap Run—or Ovoka, as the Indigenous people call it. When he’s not overseeing the tobacco crop, Isaac is busy courting Molly Morgan, the sharp-tongued daughter of one of the prominent local families, who stands to inherit a great deal of wealth. Isaac finds himself caught between wanting to please his father by increasing the family’s fortunes and itching to get out from beneath the man’s yoke. When Isaac learns that his father has resorted to murder-for-hire to potentially increase his holdings, he resolves that he would rather be his own man than live beneath the Spotswood tyranny. He marries Molly, and the two of them build a life for themselves in a modest cabin without relying on slave labor. Cut off from his father’s wealth, the couple learns how difficult it is to scratch a life from the rough wilderness, one in which every landowner must make moral compromises in order to survive.
The author succeeds in portraying colonial Virginia as every bit as ruthless and power-obsessed as the warring kingdoms in the Game of Thrones series, bringing some welcome complexity to historical figures like a young George Washington and Thomas Fairfax. He likewise offers a view of the hard life experienced by the White citizens of more meager backgrounds, who are often forced to do the dirty work of their betters (the perspectives of slaves and Indigenous people are not given much page time). None of the characters are quite as richly imagined as they could be, though Isaac comes closest—the chapters he narrates are appealingly gruff, marked by the laconic man’s tendency to drop the subjects from his sentences: “Reached the village. Had no plan whatsoever other than to see Molly. A courting call, unexpected, unannounced. Hopped down from my horse, laid the reins over the post, walked to their door. Knocked. Waited. Heard stirring inside.” The other chapters, told from the point of view of other characters, are less engaging by comparison, stealing focus from Keller’s exploration of his protagonist’s interiority and his culpability within the larger system. Even so, there are more than enough backroom deals and double-crosses here to keep the reader entertained.
A gritty, nuanced dramatization of the roots of American land ownership and political power.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9798218146870
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Slate Hill Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2023
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
