If you love Jennifer Weiner, you’ll love this one. And if you’re a newbie, start here.
A plus-size Instagram influencer stumbles into a murder mystery when called to serve as a bridesmaid for her fabulous former best friend.
Weiner’s 14th novel, and her second with a murder plot, is also a short course in social media lingo and best practices. At its center is Daphne Berg, a classic Weiner heroine—a young New Yorker who supports herself by working 20 hours a week as a nanny, by selling crafts in her Etsy store, and through sponsorships of Instagram posts for both her (yoga mats, makeup, plus-size fashion) and her pooch (organic dog treats). Her career began accidentally in her sophomore year of college, when her No. 1 frenemy, an exquisitely lovely heiress named Drue Lathrop Cavanaugh, lured her into a humiliating setup in a bar, the last of a long series of mean tricks that began in high school. When her date called her a “fat bitch” and Daphne responded with fury—“I am fat. But that doesn’t mean you get to treat me like garbage”—and video of the incident went viral, she chose to embrace the moment. She has since become a beloved internet avatar of body acceptance #sorrynotsorry #justasIam. Drue has been out of her life for seven years when she bursts back in to beg Daphne to be her bridesmaid at a spectacular, made-for–social media Cape Cod wedding. Against her better instincts, Daphne agrees, and before long she is handmaiden at #drueandstu2020, a beachfront extravaganza Weiner really outdoes herself in describing. Things are going a lot better than Daphne ever could have dreamed—hot sex scene alert!—when the plot takes a turn for the Agatha Christie. But no matter what mayhem transpires, you can always count on Weiner for delicious food. “I squeezed lemon onto my first oyster, added a dollop of cocktail sauce, tipped it into my mouth and gulped it down, humming in pleasure at its sweet, briny taste.” “My mother hugged me hard, and my father mixed up a pitcher of Sidecars and served us his cioppino, with toasted wedges of garlicky toasted baguette.” “Get the malasadas, if they’re fresh.” Turns out they are, and so is this novel.
If you love Jennifer Weiner, you’ll love this one. And if you’re a newbie, start here.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3351-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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
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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