A well-researched adventure that skillfully mixes warts-and-all history with cinematic action.
Social and legal impediments hamper the life of a mixed-race teen born out of wedlock to a baronet in this historical novel.
In 1774, Arthur Charteris owns a sugar plantation on the British colony of Grenada as well as 92 enslaved people. A reader of the philosopher John Locke, who wrote “Every man had a property in his own person,” Arthur doesn’t abuse those who toil for his fortune. When he purchases a 15-year-old girl named Weju, she proves herself a valuable healer. He frees her, and within a year, she runs the plantation at his side and is with child. Tragically, Weju dies soon after Alexander, or “Chart,” is born. Several years later, as Arthur inherits his father’s baronetcy, he and Chart return to Leicester, England. Chart has a happy countryside childhood at Knossington Hall, though his grandmother Lady Dorothea warns Arthur that the beloved mixed-race boy won’t legally inherit anything. When Chart is 13 years old, he meets his cousin Pemberton, who is two years older and has a slight hunch. Even before the boys attend Westminster together, Pemberton reveals lust and darkness in his heart. At school, Chart’s classmates torture him with words and deeds. He comes to believe his only escape from a society that loathes him lies with the military—and the warfare in India. From Ashby, author of the Seth Armitage historical thrillers, comes an adventure set in the twilight years of slavery in England. Chart's journey encapsulates an era in which empires fractured and intellectuals such as Thomas Paine exposed leaders like Thomas Jefferson, who, “despite proclaiming that all men are created equal,” believed “blacks are inferior to whites.” Alongside copious research and sharp prose that honors the character of the 18th century, the author displays a modern flair for drama and gore (“Chart saw a bamboo pole...with a human head stuck on the top”). Pemberton eventually succeeds in destroying Chart’s legal claims. The cousin’s villainy later overshadows Chart’s romance with Arabella Sherrard, a girl from a poor family who venerates his Caribbean lineage. Plenty of intense action awaits readers in the final third.
A well-researched adventure that skillfully mixes warts-and-all history with cinematic action.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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