A moving and funny reminder that life is meant to be lived one day at a time.
A stressed-out London 20-something desperately wishes to skip to the “good part” of her life.
Lucy Young is struggling. She works in her dream field, television, but she’s a junior researcher who gets little respect. She lives in a dumpy flat with roommates who do things like make bone broth in the bathtub. Plus, she’s stuck going on demoralizing first dates that never turn into anything more. When she finds a wishing machine at the back of a shop, she makes a wish to skip to the “good part”: the part where she’s met her soulmate, isn’t broke, and has a career that makes her proud. The next morning, she wakes up in a strange house, with a strange man sleeping beside her. Lucy eventually pieces together that the wishing machine was real, and she's skipped the last 16 years of her life to end up in the “good part.” Her husband, Sam, takes her to a doctor who diagnoses temporary amnesia, even though Lucy knows that’s not what happened. No one believes her, though, except her 7-year-old son, Felix, who thinks she’s an alien invader and becomes determined to send her back where she came from. As Lucy gets more familiar with her new life, she realizes that she really did get everything she dreamed of, but she has no memories of the happy events that got her there, like falling in love. Worse, she realizes that tragedies have happened and she has no memory of those, either. Lucy starts to understand that perhaps the woman at the wishing machine shop was right when she said, “Life is never quite sorted whatever stage you’re at.” Cousens has written another gentle love story that manages to be both hilarious and poignant. Lucy’s time travel leads to many funny mishaps (like getting used to the high-tech cars of the future, which dispense positive affirmations in the voice of Stanley Tucci), but also some genuinely tear-jerking moments.
A moving and funny reminder that life is meant to be lived one day at a time.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780593539897
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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