A heartfelt, humanist poetry collection that wears its eco-activism on its sleeve.
Armitage explores memory, loss, place, and the tension between nature and development in these 14 poems grounded in time and place.
While we live in a culture that worships technological advancement and everything futuristic, the tone early on in this collection is one of preservationist lament. “Intaglio” mourns cultural erasure along Route 66 of the Texas/New Mexico border, contrasting the past of Comanche “collecting plants for medicine bundles / their weapons striking the speaking rock” with modern-day generic signage. The speaker finds unexpected companionship in visiting a flightless ring-necked duck, “un- / assuming in his indigo necklace,” paddling in wastewater at a treatment plant in “Memory in Water” (the speaker muses, “My aloneness meets yours. / Yet I am less alone when you are here / and to be here you are less free.”) Rocking chairs become the conduit for familial memories in “Xylem and Phloem,” in which the speaker conjures her grandfather using his flexed foot to give her a pony ride in one seat and her great-great-grandmother quilting in another. The book concludes with “To Make a Prairie,” an elegy for a short-grass prairie once teeming with wildlife and medicinal and food plants that has been replaced by “widened, improved roads, electrical / towers, the steel will of development” and a “vacuous sky.” In this quietly passionate poetry collection, Armitage aims to preserve personal, geographical, and historical remnants of the world around her. The poet’s voice is warm and familiar while insisting on bearing witness to a world where our relationship to nature is irrevocably changing. The intimate connection between people and nature is evident in lines like, “I unfurl the hose, bring the holy water: / you tap an inner sweetness // in this supplicant turned steward, / in this gesture of love.” Even inanimate objects come alive, like a cedar chest described as a “yawning trove” in “hues of tree flesh.” However, the collection’s more experimental side may dissuade some readers from journeying further into the book.
A heartfelt, humanist poetry collection that wears its eco-activism on its sleeve.Pub Date: July 11, 2025
ISBN: 9798899900488
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Finishing Line Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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