A snowy gothic tale of life, death, and birth.
Two families seek a midwife in Morrissey’s literary novel.
In 1907, in a rural Midwestern village, two women go into labor during a snowstorm. Emma Houndstooth is the only midwife in the area, and both women are desperate to have her by their side. Roberta Frye has sent her daughter, Bitty, out into the deep snow to Houndstooth Farm, but the girl quickly becomes lost in the blizzard. She’s forced to take shelter in the Hollis Woods, a local forest named for the “Hollis children who, decades before, wandered one by one into the unnamed woods until all five were gone, never heard from again.” Meanwhile, Emma—who hasn’t overseen a successful birth in nearly two years—has traveled to the bedside of 16-year-old Sarah Johnson, whose pregnancy is being kept a secret by the rest of her family. Other characters are on the move as well that night: a farmer grieving his declining wife, the coroner forced to store the dead in a shed in winter, and two young men, one of whom may be the father of Sarah’s baby (not to mention a pack of increasingly bold coyotes—and a possible Native American crow-god). As they seek out the midwife and one another, these characters can’t help but disturb their respective pasts, as if leaving footprints in the falling snow. Morrissey’s lyrical prose, which changes its rhythm depending on which character’s head he inhabits, captures the textures and cosmologies of this small, hard world. Here he describes the contents of a farmer’s almanac: “a planting chart aligned with the zodiac, the many uses of a poultice made from Indian mint and reduced goat urine, how to predict the weather with a pig’s spleen, the best broths for earache, how to use an ox skull to intensify the light from a bullseye lantern.” This is a ghost story that changes shape as often as its ghosts do, and patient readers will enjoy every permutation.
A snowy gothic tale of life, death, and birth.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2024
ISBN: 9798989108640
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Twelve Winters Press
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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 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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