An absorbing and powerful story showing the pointlessness of war.
A boy searches for his sister near the end of the Trojan War.
Eleven-year-old Hani wonders if he is the last person on Earth. His family and neighbors have recently disappeared, either killed or dragged away to serve in the war. For as long as Hani has lived, war has raged. Now alone, he survives by killing and roasting frogs. A gentle soul, he doesn’t like killing harmless creatures, but he needs to eat. He feels a special bond with his 6-year-old sister, Arinna, and they share a secret language. Arinna used to sing them both to sleep with songs that she’d heard from the gods, the songs that would protect children from danger, and now she is gone. He sets out on a journey to find her and bring her home. He believes he is not brave, so his mission calls for “loyalty and pluck.” While the setting is not explicitly named, the details—such as bronze daggers, cubit measurements, and the remnants of a wooden horse—firmly situate the tale in the aftermath of the Trojan War. Hani travels with his loyal donkey, Ansa, a source of comfort and wisdom. He does wonder if the thousand or more gods on Mount Hazzi are real; if they were, “why would they destroy the world, then choose him, Hani, the most ignorant person alive, to be the only survivor?” He comes to a burned-out city with its “twisty tangle of human corpses,” almost every one of them an old person. This war has been explained to him his whole life, but he still knows nothing. However, he believes in fate, which even the gods are powerless to stop. His own fate is to search for Arinna. Meanwhile, the first sign he sees of life is a dying soldier who opens his eyes. Is he an invader from across the seas, or is he a defender? Hani doesn’t know, but he has three choices: He can kill the man, walk away and let him die, or try to slake the poor man’s thirst. His decision guides the rest of the plot in this remarkable post-Iliad adventure. Although admittedly ignorant, Hani wisely muses that “love is what holds the world together; even a child knows it, a donkey knows it, a trapped frog knows it.” And perhaps more ominously, “Maybe peace is just war taking a rest.” But he loves “when the first stars appear, rising freshly washed and sparkling from the sea.”
An absorbing and powerful story showing the pointlessness of war.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316581233
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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