A sweet, thrilling fable about the toll of grief and what it takes to fill a monster-sized hole.
A shy young man joins his eccentric uncle on a wild hunt to kill a dragon and raise the dead.
Tussling with the unknown always comes with inescapable risks, but men generally only find madness and heartache when they start looking for meaning in an impossible universe. Gentler than Melville but less redemptive than Coelho’s magnum opus, The Alchemist (1993), this unpredictable adventure novel offers a heady reflection on science, faith, and the necessity of myth. Sampson “Gentle” Montgomery is a man in profound grief, soothed only by heroic doses of “Sweet Vitriol,” a potent combination of opium and laudanum. His best friend and scientific partner, Liam O’Kelly, is dead, killed by a gargantuan alabaster salamander terrorizing the Pacific Northwest circa the 1890s. Gentle is convinced that he can use his partner’s knowledge of alchemy, combined with the beast’s blood, to resurrect Liam from the grave. But a hunting trip takes money, a problem soon solved when Gentle’s runaway nephew, Kitt, shows up at his door, fleeing habitual abuse from his father, Gentle’s cruel brother, Emmanuel. Together, they head into the frontiers of Washington State, armed only with a copy of Liam’s alchemical spellbook, but they’re not alone. Before long, they’ve run afoul of a hypermasculine hunter named Hercules Belmont and a maniacal frontier warlord, Reverend Judge Malcolm Crane, not to mention a nihilist death cult, infected by apocalyptic visions generated by the animal they’ve dubbed “Leviathan.” Costa’s debut uses familiar building blocks, from the inherent quest for an impossible creature to the frontier violence that works so memorably in Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025). Whether Gentle is a visionary or a drunk, whether the salamander is a creature of flesh or a shared delusion, and ultimately, the meaning of the mission is as much about human frailty and grace as the nightmares that stalk the page.
A sweet, thrilling fable about the toll of grief and what it takes to fill a monster-sized hole.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781683695059
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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