Faith’s Pick
March 2025
The Wedding People
Alison Espach
Henry Holt and Co., July 30, 2024
"Reader, I married him." So Charlotte Brontë relays to us the details of Jane Eyre's wedding to Mr. Rochester. One sentence to sum up the entire romantic plot. 19th-century literature professor Phoebe Stone muses on this succinct novelistic depiction of a wedding, among other Victorian examples, when she finds herself an unexpected guest at a lavish wedding at the Cornwall Inn in Newport, Rhode Island. She is, in fact, the only hotel guest who is not among the titular "Wedding People." Phoebe arrives at this lavish wedding carrying far more (emotional) baggage than a wedding celebration (even one lasting six full days) should involve. This is not how she planned to visit the Cornwall - where she imagined slurping oysters and admiring the open ocean (which she, hailing from St. Louis, has never before visited). But it doesn't take long for the bride, Lila, to fold Phoebe into her opulent orbit, whether Phoebe wants to be there or not.
The Wedding People is one of those rare novels that manages to be both sharply funny and quietly devastating at the same time. Alison Espach crafts a story that unfolds over the course of a single wedding weekend - or in Lila's case, a full wedding week - yet feels expansive in its emotional depth.
The supporting cast—Lila; her groom, Gary; Gary's young daughter, Juice (don't call her Mel); Gary's brother-in-law, Jim (still devastated by the loss of his sister - Gary's first wife); and assorted guests—are drawn with an intoxicating mix of satire and compassion. No one is reduced to caricature. Instead, each character feels painfully recognizable, as though you’ve met some version of them at your own family gatherings.
What makes the book so compelling isn’t just the social spectacle of the wedding itself, but the intimate unraveling happening beneath the surface. Espach has a gift for exposing the awkward, painful, and often absurd moments that define human relationships—especially in high-pressure environments like weddings, where joy and heartbreak often sit uncomfortably side by side.
What stands out most is the author's tone. She deftly balances biting humor with genuine tenderness. Just when a scene starts to veer toward cringe-worthy comedy, it quickly pivots into something unexpectedly poignant. The result is a novel that feels honest about the realities of loneliness, regret, and reinvention without ever becoming heavy-handed. Some readers may find the pacing introspective rather than plot-driven. But for those who enjoy character-focused fiction that lingers on emotional nuance, The Wedding People delivers.
Overall, The Wedding People is a smart, emotionally resonant novel about the strange intimacy of shared spaces and the possibility of change—even in the middle of someone else’s celebration. For, as Jane Eyre also told us and which Phoebe learns over the course of this novel, much to her great surprise, "There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
Beth’s Pick
February 2026
The Road to Tender Hearts
Annie Hartnett
Ballantine Books, April 29, 2025
This heart-warming novel centers on PJ Halliday, a 63-year-old lottery winner living in Pondville, Massachusetts. His older daughter has died tragically, his marriage has ended, he spends too much time at a neighborhood bar and his younger daughter is tired of worrying about him. In high school PJ loved Michelle Cobb and when he learns that her husband has died he is determined to travel to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle’s heart.
PJ becomes the guardian of his brother’s two grandchildren so setting off on this road trip across America are PJ, the orphaned children, PJ’s adult daughter Sophie and a former therapy cat named Pancakes who has a knack for predicting death.
There are many adventures along the way. This novel has moments of happiness and sadness, and it can feel zany and fantastical but there are many deep passages. Ultimately PJ’s hopeful quirkiness and the way the group is transformed by their journey give the reader many reasons to smile.
This was an NPR and Lit Hub Best Book of the Year and the New England Book Awards Fiction Winner.
Chris’s Pick
January, 2026
The Correspondent
Virginia Evans
Crown Publishing, April 29, 2025
Every morning, at half past ten, Sybil Van Antwerp sits at her writing desk and begins her ritual of writing letters. She writes to her brother in France, to her best friend in Connecticut, to a university president denying her request to audit a literature class, to a young boy being bullied at school….
At 72 years old, Sybil is far from a sedate grandmotherly old woman. Strong in opinion and often prickly in tone, we learn that in her career she was assistant to a judge and that one pronounced sentence continues to haunt her. We learn that she is estranged from her daughter, that her marriage has dissolved, that her son died in a tragic accident at age eight.
Written in epistolary format, the reader must read between the lines, as we are given only fragments of each storyline with each correspondence. There is no narrator to help us tie up the ends; the puzzle is ours to piece together. Often the letters that supply an answer are written months, even years, apart. We learn of professional triumphs, and personal devastation, and watch the slow, painful repair of relationships.
Sybil’s love of reading is apparent throughout the whole book. She corresponds with literary icons offering opinions and comments about their work (Joan Didion, Kazuo Ishiguro, Larry McMurtry, Ann Patchett) and occasionally those authors respond.
(I especially loved that she finishes letters to her friends by asking “What are you reading now?”)
Choosing to listen to the audio version of this book changed the book from excellent to transforming. It is performed by a full cast; each correspondent becoming a distinct person, voices that become recognizable, that may hesitate, or shift in tone, giving us a further sub context to the story.
I have read dozens of truly excellent books this year, always making the choice of which one to review difficult. But this unexpected novel consisting only of letters written and received catapulted to the top of my list this year. It is a wonderful, at times heartbreaking, story. Take a chance on The Correspondent.