An energetic international drama with an indefatigable heroine.
A Cold War novel that features two accidental spies on a daring mission to change the Soviet government.
Set in Northern Europe in 1971, Baker’s epic international spy thriller chronicles the lives of Lena Kristoff, a Soviet academic economist, and Eric Barrenger, an American paleontology student in Sweden. Each ends up embroiled in the Cold War espionage that’s a perfect fit for the setting. Lena dreams of changing her government’s totalitarian system, while younger, more impressionable grad student Eric imagines the life of a spy to be lucrative and thrilling, so he accepts jobs to discreetly courier packages to remote locations. The characters’ paths converge in Leningrad, and they begin a steamy love affair, although the danger increases as the courier jobs become more complex. When a delivery goes wrong, Eric is shot and Lena barely escapes with her life, and as the couple are separated, Lena fears the worst. Before long, she’s surprised by an unexpected pregnancy, and raises Eric’s child with her sister, Katya, and her friends. In 1978, she takes a new secret assignment, assessing a computer model of the Soviet economic structure and smuggling documents for the CIA, which could make her aspirations for a Soviet “turnover to a Western-style economy and democracy” come true. Lena’s mission soon puts her on the run with her young son in tow, and in the novel’s gripping second half, she attempts to outsmart angry Soviet military colonels in a chase across Eastern Europe. Over the course of this book, Baker expertly sets scenes of betrayal, sabotage, and surveillance, all energized by Lena’s steely determination to bring down the Soviet government. The scenes between her and Eric effectively leaven the espionage excitement with passionate romance, but after a showdown at the Austrian border nearly kills Lena, it leads to characters reconsidering their lives. Baker once again shows himself to be a skillful, seasoned writer, as he adroitly demonstrated in his past historical biographies, detective series, and espionage novels.Throughout, he delivers captivating action as the gently simmering plot rolls along, with exacting, atmospheric period details, and crisp character development.
An energetic international drama with an indefatigable heroine.Pub Date: May 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-94-933622-1
Page Count: 511
Publisher: Other Voices Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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