A skillfully constructed and refreshingly grounded coming-of-age story.
In McPherson’s speculative novel, two teenage boys struggle with romantic feelings while living under a repressive regime.
Logan Cardot, a boy with a keen interest in languages and literature, is raised in secret in the city-state of Hallsburg, by parents who were not licensed to reproduce. They educate him at home and hide his existence from the chancellor-run authoritarian government. When their home is raided, Logan’s books are seized and his parents are sent to Shalecrest, a work and reeducation camp where many others have died. Logan is moved to Childers Coast Home, a school for children born to unlicensed parents that houses nearly 4,000 boys; there, he develops an instant camaraderie with the charismatic and headstrong Jace Evans. They and their circle of friends—Squints, Bails, and three boys named Ben—play rugby and engage in typical boarding school shenanigans, such as breaking into a chemistry lab. Logan resists his growing attraction to Jace until the object of his affection unexpectedly reveals that the attraction is mutual. Obliged to keep their relationship a secret, they find an unlikely ally in Ms. Lowell, the dean of Eagle Hold dormitory, who reveals that she, too, has a secret partner. As the two boys’ relationship becomes more physical, their feelings for each other deepen. However, when agents of the regime, known as Black Lapels, visit the school seeking recruits, Logan must make difficult choices. McPherson’s detailed characterization and a distinct lack of melodrama enhance this story of two boys learning what it means to be human in inhuman conditions. Jace is a wonderfully nuanced character; like Steerforth in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, his brashness, casual disregard for rules, and devotion make him ambiguous, unpredictable, and compelling. McPherson wisely foregrounds the central relationship, revealing enough about the dystopian regime and its history to underscore its danger to the boys, but refusing to let it eclipse the romantic drama. The author’s meticulous attention to character development is rewarded in the poignant final chapters.
A skillfully constructed and refreshingly grounded coming-of-age story.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9798992254372
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Metaltail Press
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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.
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