A fun premise that’s hampered by uneven prose.
In this debut novel, an American mother’s criminal past follows her to Canada.
Daria Montero needs to get out of Baltimore. She grew up on the streets, and her son’s father, Ray, is an active member of the Crips—in addition to being an abusive gambler. But she’s finally decided she wants a better life for herself and 12-year-old Liam away from the violence and the drugs. Knowing she’ll have to leave the country in order to escape the reach of Ray and the Crips, she decides to sneak into Canada. Once over the border, she finds a job, rents an apartment, and sets up a new life for herself and Liam in Ottawa, complete with Canadian IDs—which turn out to be surprisingly easy to acquire. She parlays a job at a strip club into a technologist position at a nearby office of Canada’s defense department, and she soon rises through the ranks thanks to little more than her ingenuity and people skills. Then her new Canadian life is threatened when an old connection from Baltimore—one with ties to the Cuban government—blackmails Daria into passing him data about Canadian and American defense systems. Caught between the threat of discovery on one side and the guarantee of it on the other, Daria is forced to put all her skills of deceit and invention to the test. Reid’s prose is workmanlike, and his narrative voice is not nearly as smooth or adaptive as his protagonist: “At her job, Daria continued working almost entirely on image-building and making herself look good. Everything she did at work now went exclusively towards enhancing how others perceived her. She started wearing new outfits she had recently acquired—dressed to the hilt, as the guys put it.” Still, Daria’s inventiveness is entertaining, and readers will become quickly invested in her plight. Unfortunately, the author opts to tell Daria’s story primarily through exposition, with relatively few scenes outside of terse dialogue exchanges. Readers will be left feeling as though they are reading the summary of an immersive novel rather than the book itself.
A fun premise that’s hampered by uneven prose.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-03-913129-3
Page Count: 302
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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