Dramatically engaging and evocative of time and place.
In Cam’s historical novel, a casual interaction at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair leads to significant life changes for two couples.
Mary and Edward Simons live in Miami, Florida. It’s March 1933 as Mary tends to her 1-year-old daughter, Janie, who suffers from severe asthma. Despite the best efforts of Mary and her daughter’s doctor, little Janie dies; shortly after, Mary’s ailing mother also dies, sinking Mary into a deep depression. (“Edward was all Mary had left. But he was healthy and strong…He didn’t need her the way Mama and Janie had.”) Edward works with the local government to prepare Florida’s agricultural exhibit for the upcoming September World’s Fair in Chicago. Meanwhile, up in New York City, Elena and William Wagner have begun to drift apart: He’s preoccupied with worry over how the Great Depression is decreasing his ability to provide Elena with their luxurious lifestyle; she is feeling neglected. She convinces him to join her for a romantic night on the town. Unfortunately for Elena, the night’s frivolity leads to an unwanted pregnancy—William is ecstatic over the unexpected news, but Elana is devastated. In October, William and a seven-months pregnant Elena encounter Mary at the Florida exhibit of the World’s Fair, where she’s extolling Edward’s knowledge of orange farming. William buys land in Florida and asks Edward to manage his new sugar grove in Clewiston, a swampy area 100 miles north of Miami. Cam’s character-driven drama is a touching tale of love, loss, friendship, and the painful search for new beginnings. The first volume of a trilogy, this compelling historical narrative follows the lives of two women who are forced to put aside their personal dreams to follow their husbands. (Elena and Mary struggle within the confines of the vividly depicted small-town misogyny and suffer from the oppressive, lung-damaging air from the annual burning of the sugar stalks.) Although the storyline occasionally veers close to melodrama, the two memorable female protagonists are fully three-dimensional and are sensitively drawn.
Dramatically engaging and evocative of time and place.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798994442500
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Hammock Oak Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Simply charming.
A lovable gaggle of competitive quilters attempts to defy the odds.
The ladies of the Ogden Quilters Association are gearing up for another Simpton Family Quilting Extravaganza, and this year’s nationwide competition is extra special: It’s taking place just an hour away in Smithfield, Utah. For Betty Lou Dearden, OQA’s leader and most faithful member, who never misses a Wednesday quilting night and delights in reading the bylaws, this is a dream come true—a chance to put Utah quilting on the map. But beneath her bubbly surface, Betty Lou is struggling—longtime member Leera Smeeth has been passive aggressively shooting down Betty Lou’s ideas and attacking her sense of self for years (see: a particularly biting comment about her beloved peach bathroom); her children rarely visit; and her husband’s health is declining. And to top it off, OQA is down a member since Terry Blackfoot left following the oft-referenced but never explained “needle incident.” OQA’s remaining members—flighty but lovable Lucy Jones; dependable Diane Williams and her roommate, Alice Flagstaff; and innovative Candace Braithwaite—need more support. Enter Byron Grant, a gay sewing store manager who deals in rumor and gossip as much as in thread and batting, and his best friend, shy, artistic Rob, both younger than the youngest OQA member by about 30 years. Don’t worry, there’s nothing in the bylaws expressly prohibiting men. And so this quirky group of artisans attempts to dethrone the always-winning, clearly evil Logan Quilters Society (“We don’t hate anyone!...We just don’t prefer to associate with cheaters”), all the while wrestling with interpersonal conflict, trauma, and, let’s face it, a few tacky ideas. The plot is silly and largely predictable, but McCann’s prose is bursting at the seams with humor and genuinely tender, touching moments. You’ll root for these misfits from Page 1.
Simply charming.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9798890920461
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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