A skillfully rendered literary return, anchored by a hero worth following.
In shoeless’ novel, an American-born daughter of Nancy and Mr. Bumble—two characters from Charles Dickens’ classic 1838 novel, Oliver Twist—returns to Victorian London seeking answers about her family’s past, and her own destiny.
Olivia Cranehill arrives in the Smithfield district from Upstate New York, intent on tracing the life of the mother she never knew. Raised by her adoptive father, Sakata, a former Japanese soldier-turned-restaurateur, Olivia has a disciplined martial bearing and the curved blade of a wakizashi, hidden beneath her clothes. Her first encounters in London set the tone for a tale that blends mystery, nostalgia, and quiet revelation. Olivia learns pieces of Nancy’s story from her mother’s old friend, Bet, including her self-imposed captivity with the violent Bill Sikes, her fierce loyalty to Fagin’s boys, and the talismanic objects she left behind. When Bet produces Nancy’s white, knitted shawl, Olivia feels “as if they were just one touch apart, fingertips reaching across time.” An engraved pocket watch becomes yet another thread tying mother and daughter together. The author expands the Dickensian tapestry by weaving Olivia’s own trans-Atlantic upbringing into the plot. Interludes recall her training with Sakata (“You must turn away, be meek and live for tomorrow….sometimes, to lose is to win”) and her eventual mastery of the sword, illustrated in a quiet but deadly scene in which she decapitates a wasp in midflight. These details lend her a self-possession that’s rare among Dickens’ female characters. The plot widens when Olivia sets out to find Sir Oliver Twist, the boy her father once helped, who’s now risen to aristocracy. Her walk through the capital is as much a tour of Victorian contrasts as it is a narrative progression, rich with street-level vignettes and historical texture. The novel succeeds as both homage and expansion: familiar names—Fagin, Sikes, Twist—surface in altered roles, reframed by time and circumstance. Olivia herself is a magnetic protagonist: disciplined, physically formidable, yet emotionally vulnerable in her search for belonging and truth.
A skillfully rendered literary return, anchored by a hero worth following.Pub Date: June 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781068733949
Page Count: 366
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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