Engrossing and carefully penned, with a formidable female protagonist.
The daughter of a California winemaker fights for her father’s approval in Williams’ novel.
It is May, 1960. Forty-year-old Sofia Russo is swirling a glass of Pinot Noir poured from the first bottle from her second harvest. On her desk sits a blank sheet of paper, waiting for her to write words of tribute to her father, Giovanni Russo, to be spoken at the opening ceremony of Russo Vineyards’ first tasting room. The festivities will also serve as the official handover of the vineyard from father to son, from Giovanni to Sofia’s twin brother Alonso (Al) Russo—but it is Sofia who has always dreamed of being the next Russo vintner, whose soul is infused with the smells and labor of the vineyard. Al is a graphic artist, with little interest in winemaking, but he is resigned to accepting responsibility for preserving the family heritage. From the time she was a toddler, Sofia would follow her father and grandfather into the fields, spending every possible moment with her Papa. All that changed at the twins’ 10th birthday party, the day that Giovanni made clear that Al would inherit the vineyard (“as fathers, we are blessed to have sons to carry on the family name”); her relationship with her father has been fractured ever since. After renting a patch of land from friend and neighboring winemaker Mateo Parisi, Sofia has just produced her own outstanding vintage. Williams’ narrative is a vibrant tale of complex filial relationships. Of equal weight is the vivid presentation of the struggles of Napa Valley vintners during Prohibition and the Great Depression—some of the novel’s most compelling and poignant sections are found in these historical chapters. Additionally, the story serves as a primer on the extraordinarily intricate day-by-day decisions involved in producing a fine vintage, with Sofia scrupulously following her beloved grandfather’s inspiration and tutelage. The technical information can become a bit mind-numbing for the average wine consumer, but connoisseurs will enjoy having their attention to vintage subtleties validated.
Engrossing and carefully penned, with a formidable female protagonist.Pub Date: July 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781989144282
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Rippling Effects
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
