A busy but wonderful example of generous escapism and a book to be recommended.
Sibley’s novel welcomes readers to small-town Texas with a tale featuring a strange but entertaining passel of characters.
Marty Pennebaker has left her life in Manhattan and come back to her family’s sprawling ranch, Los Abuelos, south of San Antonio. Her father, Pete, hopes that she’ll get married and take over the place; her only other sibling, Tom, died of complications from AIDS more than a year ago. Thanks to the ranch, with its oil and gas and good grazing, the Pennebakers are inexhaustibly wealthy, and they amount to laid-back nobility in tiny Rita Blanca, Texas. Marty has a purely sexual relationship with local Pettus Lyndecker, a member of a poor family that’s just scraping by, but for Pettus, lust is turning into love, which complicates matters. Soon, Chito Sosa, Tom’s Mexican widower, arrives in town with money to fulfill Tom’s hope of making a difference in the decaying town. Other characters include twins Darcy and Delilah Lyndecker, Pettus’ sisters, and their failing flower shop; their archenemy is upstart florist Carol Ann Jansky. Another subplot involves Syrian refugee Adnan Hakim and his young daughter, Haya, who are discovered hiding on the ranch; they try to avoid deportation with other characters’ help. Sibley is an experienced novelist and playwright and a native Texan. Plot is his strong point, although readers will often find it easy to guess the next twist. However, he clearly loves his kooky characters and looks after them as only an affectionate puppeteer can: Is someone having a crisis in their life? Perhaps a marriage will help—or perhaps a sudden monetary windfall. Is a change of heart needed? If so, Sibley will look into that, too—even if that is a bit more of a challenge. Some may object to such relentless conjuring of happiness, but other readers will relish it.
A busy but wonderful example of generous escapism and a book to be recommended.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm.
An elderly man’s posthumous journey back through his life has unexpected consequences for several people, and lessons for everyone.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that readers adore any novel set in a reading group, bookshop, or library, from the terribly sad (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 2008) to the puzzle-heavy (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, 2012) to the downright clever (The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, 2007). Haig, who’s already written The Midnight Library (2020), mines a similar vein in this novel centered on a bookseller named Wilbur Budd; place this one in the seriously sentimental category. Wilbur dies at 81 just after receiving a call from his ex-wife, Maggie. He finds himself on a classic steam-train carriage, accompanied by a younger version of the woman who founded the bookstore he turned into a global conglomerate. As Mrs. Agnes Bagdale explains, he’s on a trip to significant places and events from his life, but he’s forbidden from interfering in them, thus possibly changing the course of other people’s lives. True to his maverick tendencies, Wilbur struggles with the three rules of the train (“You get on and off the train as required. You never try and speak to yourself. And you must never be there when you fall asleep”) and struggles even more mightily as he realizes that Maggie was his true love and lifelong lodestar. While some moments verge on maudlin, as when Wilbur and Maggie goggle at Venice during their honeymoon, these are tempered by quieter observations, as when Wilbur’s oldest friend, Charlie, tells him frankly during lunch at a trendy restaurant that his constant ambition is a failing. This isn’t a subtle book and it’s not trying to be; it’s urging readers to think about their own choices, wherever they find themselves.
A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9780593833377
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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