This novel will bend and twist your notion of what love is, while leaving you utterly bewitched.
A woman marked by a family curse has a chance to rewrite her fate—but not without making a bargain with darkness.
Centuries ago, a being is born from the shadows, the product of a ritual, and roams in search of light from souls to feed its darkness. The being eats its first soul and takes the soul’s human form, becoming Miriam Richter. Fast forward to 1576 when Cybil Harding is born “under inauspicious stars,” the first daughter who, according to family lore, is cursed to be a witch and bring nothing but destruction. Cybil’s father, a man of magic himself, is heavily influenced by the Reformation and believes his magic to be the spreading of miracles. Cybil, then, is a dark spot in his vision. When witchcraft becomes a death sentence in England, her father takes matters into his own hands. Using the same ritual as his forefathers, he summons a spirit of the darkness to do his bidding—Miriam. Emboldened by the brightest soul she has ever seen—Cybil’s—Miriam wants her above all else. Cybil is less than willing to give up her soul to darkness when she has barely had a chance to live. Thus begins a unique game of cat and mouse: “We are light and darkness, you and I. There is no choice. Eventually, one of us must destroy the other.” Cybil’s realization of her supernatural potential is juxtaposed against the fury of men at her mere existence. Miriam sees her opportunity to offer Cybil a deal, a life free from the bonds of her curse. But wagering a deal with darkness comes with unimaginable consequences, and Cybil’s soul is destined for a journey of lifetimes. Siegel uses her skills as a writer of historical fiction to highlight the changing form of oppression against women across centuries, while infusing a compelling supernatural arc that makes this story one to remember. Cybil’s journey is one of oppression, self-discovery, violence, and love, these dichotomies most simply summed up by the struggle of light versus darkness. Cybil and Miriam’s deeply complicated bond shows the human side of evil and the dark side of love. Despite her story’s grand scope, Siegel has written something both ugly and beautiful in the most human of ways.
This novel will bend and twist your notion of what love is, while leaving you utterly bewitched.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063418028
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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