Sharp, beautifully textured writing.
A young girl growing up in the Bahamas in the 1970s must navigate obvious and hidden dangers alike in Justicz’s novel.
Twelve-year-old Domini Dawes, known to her friends as Dede, is a white English girl who lives in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. The novel opens with her pinned to a boat in fear as a storm rages all around her. The story then backtracks to describe Dede’s life prior to becoming lost at sea, a life in which she already appears to be cast adrift. Her mother’s boyfriend, Silvio, is reputed to be “moving drugs” and shows little interest in her. Her mother, Anita, is a croupier who leaves Dede to her own devices each evening while she works at the local casino. Bullied at school by Jethro, the son of a bigwig politician, Dede has few allies. Johnnie McGuinn, the building manager at her apartment complex, seems to be one of the few people who are eager to spend time with her, but McGuinn has an unhealthy interest in prepubescent girls. Ethel Edgecombe, a sage Bahamian woman who also lives in her building, keeps a watchful eye over Dede, but McGuinn is intent on worming his way into her confidence. Frustrations at school, coupled with the sickening desires of the building manager, lead Dede to take a boat and head recklessly out to sea. She finds herself washed ashore on a strange island and under the guardianship of a woman named Harmony Knowles; Dede is unsure if Harmony is a figment of her imagination or real. Will Dede make it back to Freeport, and will the men in her life pay for the damage they have inflicted on her?
In this finely crafted novel, the author effortlessly builds complex psychological portraits of her main characters. Dede is ferociously indignant yet childishly naïve, particularly when unwittingly renaming her predator, “Johnnie Angel”: “Mr. McGuinn. It’s my nickname for him. He’s always sunburning his forehead.” In the character of McGuinn, Justicz convincingly takes readers into the revolting mind of a pedophile: “The bra she now wore; her breasts had grown in the past three months, and she was shaving under her arms. If she hadn’t already, she’d soon go through the change that ruined them all.” The novel presents a nuanced treatment of complex themes, from male domination of women to issues of racial inequality. When Ethel, a Bahamian by birth, recalls attending university in England, the slur “over-sized darky” remains with her. Yet she also feels like an outsider attending an upscale event in Freeport: “Still trying to impress a social club that had no room for the likes of her.” Justicz also has a captivatingly unique descriptive style: When Dede grips the armrests of her chair in anguish, the author notes: “If she squeezed any tighter, the truth would come out of the furniture.” The final part of the novel, which revisits the Bahamas in the 21st century, unnecessarily tries to tie up the loose ends a little too tightly—but the book’s conclusion presents some unexpected twists that are definitely worth waiting for. A stirring celebration of strong-minded women, this is a superb offering by a truly talented author.
Sharp, beautifully textured writing.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781959984115
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Fomite
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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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