A scintillating modern love story that will leave a lasting impression.
In Pitsirilos’ novel, a young woman navigates love and loss in a near-future world.
As an intelligence assistant who analyzes sexual behaviors across New York City, Alita Melusine knows that love is an afterthought in the modern age. Yet she can’t help but yearn for an all-consuming love of her own, and she thinks she’s finally found it with Kaveh Shamez—that is, until she meets his mother, Claire, whose immediate disapproval and possessiveness strain their relationship. As tensions rise between Claire and Alita, however, Kaveh refuses to intervene, leading the younger woman to ruminate on the well-intentioned (though often misguided) advice she’d so often relied on from her late friend, Jean. Still reeling from Jean’s sudden death, she reflects on memories of sailing through the Greek islands together with him, all the while wondering what he would say of her current situation. Meanwhile, the narrative slowly reveals Claire’s perspective through interspersed snippets that reveal a complex psyche, shaped by a preoccupation with comic books and disappointment over the rejection of her astrophysics thesis, among other unhealed wounds: “My thesis was rejected on account of my theory of Venus’s alien civilization. My father…blamed the comic books as fueling such fantasy.” At the novel’s core is a meditation on how to love like Venus: For Alita, it is a desire to be idolized, and, for Claire, a volatile response to suppressed pain that she struggles to conceal. Pitsirilos has crafted a compelling exploration of what it means to be human, weaving together themes of artificial intelligence, environmental degradation, mother-son relationships, and the difficulty of modern love. Although the narrative can feel momentarily disorienting at first, its structure clarifies as it unfolds, moving fluidly between timelines and perspectives in a way that will ultimately reward engaged readers. Alita and Claire, in particular, stand out as fully realized characters with richly imagined backstories and psyches to guide their emotional arcs. The vivid prose further immerses readers in Alita’s story as she describes a heavily polluted Aegean Sea or Claire’s haunting personification of Venus.
A scintillating modern love story that will leave a lasting impression.Pub Date: March 2, 2026
ISBN: 9781958077115
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Janus Point Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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