An epic love story and love letter to the West. No greater reading pleasure to be had anywhere.
A teenage girl sent to reform school in deepest Montana meets the love of her life the day she arrives—the school's van driver.
"The driver was my age, maybe a little older, slender, huge cowboy hat and cowboy boots and cowboy buckle. He wore a long black braid tied with rawhide and thicker rawhide bands around his wiry biceps....He smelled like some distant burning, I can hardly explain it, studied my eyes whenever I was required to cooperate, didn’t put his hands on me, didn’t ask any questions, didn’t offer any greetings, not a word from his mouth." Look out: Roorbach has created the sexiest man seen in literature in a good long time. This is Lucky Turtle, who, as 16-year-old Cindra Zoeller is about to learn, just keeps getting better the more you know him; his wilderness survival skills—which will come seriously into play—verge on the supernatural. What's more, the very next time they're alone together, taking the camp laundry into town, he reveals that his clairvoyant aunt has foreseen that she will be his wife. Fans of Roorbach's work—most recently The Girl of the Lake (2017)—have been waiting five years for this book and will not be disappointed. Again, the man has cooked up a completely captivating world, just a touch more magical and interesting than the real one. This time, it's a place called Turtle Butte, where a disgraced television actress has turned her attention to reforming misguided female youth at a facility called Camp Challenge. It's a slowly unfolding, complicated, suspenseful plot; it's safe to say that Cindra will not be reformed. There's no lane-staying for White guy Roorbach: His teenage-girl narrator is flawless; Chinese, Haitian, and Native characters are beautifully done. (Many sensitivity readers are thanked in the acknowledgments.) Lucky Turtle has his woodland lore and Native rituals; Cindra has her copy of Hawaii, which they read aloud from every night: "Michener was strong medicine."
An epic love story and love letter to the West. No greater reading pleasure to be had anywhere.Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64375-097-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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