An intriguing but slow-paced love story.
A Catalonian man of inauspicious origins struggles to become a successful baker during politically tumultuous times in this early-20th-century epic novel based on a true story.
Martí Cardo is born and raised in Igualada, a city in Catalonia, by a family of modest means; his father, Hector, is a poor, illiterate farmer. Martí suffers from no poverty of ambition, though, and pines to emulate his older brother, Oscar, who owns a prosperous bakery business in Mexico City. After his father dies suddenly, Martí opens a bakery under the lovingly avuncular tutelage of Ceferino, his godfather. Meanwhile, Martí falls in love with Montserrat “Montse” Balaguer, a beautiful local girl, a gifted artist, and the daughter of prominent, affluent businessman Augustin. While she requites Martí’s affections, Augustin rejects their romance on the predictable grounds that the suitor is an illiterate peasant. Martí eventually wins over Augustin, and the young couple marry. But despite this triumph, the pair’s troubles have only begun. In the first third of the 20th century, Spain is immersed in domestic turbulence, and following the end of King Alfonso’s reign, the country teeters on civil war. To make matters worse, Martí’s long-standing rival for Montse’s affections, Felix Castell, the son of Igualada’s mayor, becomes a powerful officer in the army responsible for tracking down Fascists. When Felix’s lust to destroy the baker turns murderous, Martí and Montse have no choice but to flee the country and start over, hopping on a ship destined for Mexico City.
Lytle’s ambitious story is politically astute, offering many rich details. In addition, the author’s command of the historical period is impressive. While this isn’t a principally political novel—it’s a love story first and foremost—the historical context isn’t negligible, and Lytle lucidly explains the complex internecine conflicts in Spain without burdening readers or distracting them from the central narrative line. But the book is hampered by sentimentality. Consider this line describing the day of Martí and Montse’s betrothal: “Sunlight streamed in through the stained-glass windows high above them, reminding everyone of God’s love, transformed in colorful glass. The light seemed to ignite a flame of joy that lit up Montse’s face.” The tale is related by Nuria, the daughter of Martí and Montse, to well-known Spanish reporter Margarida Cardona, now an older woman. Nuria relates an old-fashioned tale, she insists, but also an unabashedly and endearingly romantic one. Unfortunately, the plot moves at an unhurried pace, unworried that readers’ patience will be tested. Yet the novel’s central problem is the writing, which can be maudlin. A romantic novel hinges on the poetry of its depictions of matters of the heart, and this work is sometimes undermined by the canned emotions of its two protagonists. Martí’s letter here is an example: “Dearest Montse, When I see you, I always feel like Heaven is smiling on me. Now that I am home, I never want us to be apart. I do not think I could bear leaving you again. You give me strength and make me happy beyond words. I hope this day and every day of your life I can give you great joy. I love you.”
An intriguing but slow-paced love story.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2021
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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