A thoughtful coming-of-age story enfolded inside a cleverly crafted double mystery.
A sudden death unsettles a Northern California community for women.
As the quarterly “reenactment of horror that led to the creation of our sanctuary” tells it, Red Grove was founded in the 19th century by Tamsen Nightingale, the survivor of a trek to California on which her sisters were killed and eaten by their starving husbands. Tamsen escaped, and when her own murderous spouse tracked her to this secluded grove of redwoods, she discovered that no woman could be harmed within its magical space. Sixteen-year-old Luce Shelley—who was brought to Red Grove at age 8 by her mother, Gloria, in 1989 after her beloved aunt Gem was beaten nearly to death by a boyfriend—believes fiercely in the place as refuge from the violent male world. Its healing atmosphere resuscitated Gem, albeit only to an “everdream” state that Gloria claims makes her a conduit to the dead loved ones, whom paying customers from nearby towns come to Red Grove to contact. As the novel opens, one of these “seekers” has a heart attack during a session and later dies in the hospital. The man’s son, buying into outsiders’ hostile depictions of Red Grove as a coven of witches or a lesbian commune, thinks Gloria willfully let him die and turns up menacingly at her front door; when Gloria disappears shortly thereafter, Luce suspects the son and vows to find her mother. Fontaine first paints a rich portrait of simmering tensions both between Gloria and Red Grove’s leader, Una, and within Gloria’s family, then launches a propulsive narrative of Luce’s quest for her mother, which leads her to the real story of Red Grove’s founding and the uncomfortable knowledge that violence is not exclusively employed by men. An affirmative finale shows Luce acting on her faith that Red Grove, newly based in truth, can continue to fulfill its mission as a place of peace and healing.
A thoughtful coming-of-age story enfolded inside a cleverly crafted double mystery.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9780374605810
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 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.
