A smart, funny novel that’s certain to make a splash.
When a Southern California elementary school principal vanishes, an overworked single parent suspects a domineering PTA president of foul play.
Between raising 7-year-old Pearl and working full time for a nonprofit that underpays and undervalues her, Mavis Miller already has enough on her plate. When PTA chair Trisha Holbrook asks Mavis—one of the only Black mothers at Knoll Elementary—to head the organization’s DEI committee, Mavis’ instinct is to decline: “DEI means diversity, equity, and inclusion, sure. But it also means free labor to be given willingly to fix problems that we didn’t create.” Mavis doesn’t want to be seen as a Bad Mom, though, which is why she’s present that evening when Trisha and Mr. Smith nearly come to blows during his first PTA meeting as Knoll’s new principal. Hours later, Mavis is walking her dog when she spies a rubber-gloved, profanity-spewing Trisha trailing Clorox bottles while dragging heavy trash bags from the school to her minivan. Mavis doesn’t suspect Trisha was up to anything nefarious until the next morning, when she drops Pearl off and discovers that Mr. Smith has gone missing. Panicked, she tells all to Jack Cohen—Knoll’s blond, broad-shouldered school psychologist—who doesn’t outright dismiss her concerns, but instead suggests the two of them team up for some “minor sleuthing.” Mavis’s first-person-present narration evinces a razor-sharp wit, complementing the clever, twist-riddled plot of YA author Bryant’s effervescent adult debut. Myriad mysteries and an enchanting will-they-or-won’t-they romance work in tandem to maintain tension throughout, while boldly drawn characters help spotlight issues such as racism, gentrification, and the devaluation of female labor. A sea of red herrings keeps readers on their toes. Fans of Alyssa Cole and Elle Cosimano should take note.
A smart, funny novel that’s certain to make a splash.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593640784
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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