Unsentimental yet deeply moving: more wonderful work from the versatile, masterful O’Nan.
Older women grapple with changes in their lives and in Pittsburgh’s East End.
Quarrelsome but inseparable sisters-in-law Emily and Arlene will be familiar to readers of three previous novels about the Maxwell family (Henry, Himself, 2019, etc.); they are joined here by two other core members of the Humpty Dumpty Club, a social and mutual aid organization for senior citizens. At 63, Susie is “the baby of the group,” still active in their church choir (the rest have aged out) and building a new life after a divorce. Harassed Kitzi, whose husband has severe heart disease and needs considerable care, finds herself de facto leader of the club after their president, Joan, takes a bad fall and is hospitalized. There’s lots to deal with: The HDs have a long list of neighbors who need to be taken to doctors’ appointments, have prescriptions picked up or meals delivered. O’Nan, whose 18 previous novels range from gritty accounts of working-class life to international political thrillers, skillfully shifts among four points of view as he chronicles the HDs’ activities from September 2022 to January 2023. Kitzi frets about neglecting her husband as she gets enmeshed in the affairs of an elderly couple who live in squalor amid an army of cats and are threatened with eviction. Susie, tending to Joan’s apartment and cat, wages a covert power struggle with Joan’s daughter, whose visits from Austin, Texas, aren’t frequent or long enough for the disapproving HDs. Arlene struggles with increasingly serious memory lapses while Emily, though clearly worried about her, serves mostly as a crochety voice at HD meetings. This frank depiction of people nearing the ends of their lives might sound bleak, but O’Nan’s brilliantly rendered characters refuse to be pitied, matter-of-factly accepting loss and physical decline as they go about their days quietly sustained by their faith and commitment to service.
Unsentimental yet deeply moving: more wonderful work from the versatile, masterful O’Nan.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780802166432
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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