Penitence is an emotional story that will capture your heart. What I really liked was that this was unlike any book I've read/listened to before. I can't imagine what happened to these characters in real life. I think this book would make a wonderful movie. It's definitely a story that will stick with me for some time. I did enjoy it on audiobook. If you enjoy them, You will fly through this in no time.

Many thanks to Macmillan and NetGalley for my gifted ALC.

This review will be shared to my Instagram @coffee.break.book.reviews close to publication date.

Penitence is a great debut novel and the story lives up to its title - great regret and sorrow for past actions abound here. I enjoyed this one on audio and while the narration was fine, I think I may have liked it even better if I had read it. This is a double timeline family saga with multiple POV's that alternates between 2000-2001 and 2017. Angie and David are now married, Angie and Julian were a past couple and Nora (13), Angie and David's daughter, has killed her brother. Secrets abound but it is a very, very sad story.

5 stars

This is a memorable, layered read full of intriguing characters and thoughtfully intertwined events. It's made even more impressive by the fact that this is a debut!

The novel begins with Angie and David and their two children, Nico and Nora, but mostly the unbearable tragedy they all face. Nora, who is only 13 years old, murders her brother (Nico) with their father's (David's) gun. Though Nico has been diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, and a lot is made (in assumptions) about Nora's potential desire to spare her brother the continued related challenges, everyone is baffled by this turn of events. Angie and David have one child who has died and another who - it appears - is responsible and now incarcerated. For help, they turn to Martine, a local attorney and the mother of Angie's young love, Julian. This, of course, brings both characters back into Angie's life, along with many memories for every one of them.

I came into this book thinking I'd be reading a psychological thriller about the central murder (because I try to come into most reads with a vibe but as little information otherwise as possible), but that is an extreme oversimplification of what this book actually contains. There are three generations of love, hurt, loss, secrets, betrayal, and so much more here. It is gripping. I listened to this book almost straight through and was thinking about it every moment that I was awake and prevented from continuing for one reason or another. It's engaging, thought provoking, sad, and challenging, but there are also really beautiful moments throughout.

This author has absolutely won a place on my I will read what you write without question list, and I cannot wait for more from Koval.

Kristin Koval's debut novel, which I listened to, is much more polished than one expects from a first book. The story of a 13-year-old girl, Nora, who calls 911 after shooting her 14-year-old brother, is not unique. There are Angie and David, her distraught parents and Julian, the attorney brought in by his attorney-mother Martine and who happens to have been Angie's former lover, who propel the novel. The setting, a small resort town in Colorado, provides the backdrop. The twists, turns, revelations, and outcomes do not come as surprises. Yet, in Koval's capable hands, they reach the reader in fundamental ways, playing on themes of guilt, love, and forgiveness. The audio version is enhanced by Thérèse Plummer's expert narration. Readers and listeners who read in this genre will greet Penitence with joy.

Angie and Davids lives take a horrible turn when their son is shot and killed. They are desperate to keep the family they still have together and fight for their daughter. They turn to Martine in hopes she can help them without it costing everything they have, and some they don’t. But when Angie and Martine’s son Julian were young and in love, tragedy struck Angie’s family with the sudden death of her sister. When Martine pulls in Julian to help her with the case, Angie and Julian must revisit their past.

This was a fantastic debut novel and one that will leave me thinking about it for a while to come! I went into this one blind and I was really glad I did as it was a pleasant surprise! The trauma that faced Angies family as well as Julian was so heartbreaking, but the way their relationship played out was just as devastating. This is one of those books where you will wonder who to root for, and question what is “right” vs what is necessary to survive. If you are looking for a great book club read, I think this would lead to really great conversation!

Thank you to @celadonbooks for my gifted copy of this book!

3.5 ⭐️

In Kristin Koval’s debut PETINENCE the reader enters the world of forgiveness, as the title suggests, for some truly unforgivable actions. Angie and David’s 13-year old daughter Nora shoots and kills her 14-year old brother Nico. They enlist Angie’s first love Julian’s mother Martine as Nora’s criminal defense attorney. This brings up the convoluted past, denoted by both tragedy and secrets, between Angie and Julian.

While I thought at first this would be like DEFENDING JACOB, but PENITENCE doesn’t stay in the legal space. I’d say it’s more of a mash-up of DEFENDING JACOB with an Angie Kim novel.

PROs:
* This novel gives the reader a lot to think about.
* The world consists of shades of gray, and that haziness is explored.
* The twists weren’t shocking and were expected well in advance. I’d say this is a pro because it indicates the plot had good groundwork. This isn’t a popcorn thriller so I don’t want twist after twist.

CONs:
* It does come across a bit heavy-handed with its themes.
* I thought it could have explored Nora’s motivations more than it did, and it was difficult to get to know the main characters.
* Possibly tied with the previous, I didn’t always like the writing style. I tend to like a closer third person or even first person narration, and this felt too far removed from the characters, more tell and less show.

Therese Plummer is the audiobook narrator. I thought she did an okay job - not bad, not great. I’d suggest sticking with how you tend to like to read books with this one, whether that be print or audio.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance listener copy in exchange for an honest review.

PENITENCE publishes January 28, 2025.

A family is rocked by a murder involving their two children and we follow the aftermath as well as past tragedies to see how they got here. It’s mostly about how mistakes can forever impact your life and the only path forward is forgiveness. Started off strong but the pacing was so weird and I was ready for things to wrap up way before they did. The character motivations made zero sense which really bothers me in such a character driven story.

The premise of this novel is absolutely heartbreaking. The writing was poignant, emotive, and direct.

Koval develops such strong characters and I loved that while the novel centered around an enormous and devastating tragedy, it encompassed so much more. I loved the backstory with Angie and Julian and how their love story and ultimate breakup slowly revealed itself across the span of the novel. The current timeline with Julian and his mother helping Angie's family during their tragedy was riveting and Koval clearly did her research. The information surrounding the juvenile justice system and procedures felt thorough, well-informed, and well executed within the plot.

Impressively, for such a profound and deeply tragic novel, I wasn't overcome with sadness or grief for most of the novel. I felt emotional with the ending, but most of the novel was conveyed in a way that wasn't hyperbolic or upsetting for the sake of being upsetting. This is something I actually really appreciated about the writing and really credit Koval for mastering that art of language.

I also loved the span of time with this novel. It felt relevant and relatable. I liked the development of people over time, the family grudges that festered and grew without oxygen, and the secrets that ate people alive from the inside it.

I listened to this novel and loved the narrator, Therese Plummer. Her voice was soothing and also exactly right during the heavier parts, even evoking some emotion of her own when necessary. It was perfectly acted and added a lot to the novel overall.

Penitence is a complex story - mostly about grief and facing tragedy. It's also about family secrets, forgiveness, survival, love, and our relationships.

Thank you to Celadon and MacMillan Audio for the copy.

I struggle with audiobooks, but this one really kept me engaged. I would call this more of a family drama than a suspense/thriller. I think as long as you know that going in, you will enjoy this story. I thought the narrator did a pretty great job on the audiobook. Definitely recommend!

A family drama with a horrible crime. Angie's and David's teen daughter has killed their young son. As the story unfolds with so many unknowns, it also becomes more complicated with some history in their family that makes all of this so much more painful.

I enjoyed this narration of a story that begins in Colorado and continues in NYC. The descriptions of each place felt spot on, making it feel more immersive. I was compelled to find out how this story would wrap up.

I recommend the audio narration of this book.

My thanks to Net Galley and Macmillian Audio for an advanced copy of this audiobook.

A very emotional family drama. It was less about the daughter Nora's crime & more about the parents' past, and how that shaped the present - I was hoping for more of a focus on the why of the crime, but you don't really get that. Overall, very powerful and moving novel and I still enjoyed it, but it was much different than I expected going in.

This book was floating around on bookstagram, getting a few five star reviews, so I figured I would give it a shot. Immediately I was hooked! The story is so intricately woven and deep, spanning decades in the character’s lives. It seems impossible that this is a debut, these characters and their stories are imprinted in my mind and I can’t stop thinking about them! There are two different families that the story follows and it goes back and forth in time showing how much they have impacted one another. The characters are flawed, make mistakes, broken, and that makes this story feel even more real to me. It is a story about forgiveness ultimately and how much heartbreak one can endure in a lifetime. I cannot stop raving about this book and won’t be happy until every one has read it! I did the audio and it was so perfect. I was able to completely get lost in the story thanks to the narrator!

Thank you Netgalley for this advanced audio edition of Penitence by Kristin Koval.

This story starts out with a bang when a young teenage girl is arrested for killing her brother. But it's not just a story of what happened, and did she do it. Instead it reaches way back, long before these siblings were born. To the life of their parents, the lovers of their parents, and everything that happened leading up to the tragic episode. It's so rich, it's vibrant, it's full of secrets and heartbreak, and not all of your questions will be answered. It was so worth the read, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Novel Concept: 5/5
Execution of Novel Concept: 3/5

Title: 4/5
Characterization: 4/5
Dialogue: 5/5
Plot: 2/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Theme: 1/5
Prose: 5/5

Does this pass the Bechdel Test: Yes

Execution of Novel Concept
This is an interesting family drama about lies and secrets of morally ambiguous people spanning miles and decades. But as a mystery / thriller it is unambiguously mediocre. It seems like two different novels were trying to be written here, and like oil and water, never seemed to truly mix. Because we spend so much time favoring the family drama of everything that led up to Nora shooting her brother, there's simply not enough time spent on this violent act. It comes off like an afterthought. A way to instigate the plot of the story that the author actually wanted to tell. The novel concept comes off that these two acts--Nora's crime as well as the nuance of Julian's and Angie's past--share equal space in plot relevance but the latter truly takes more precedent than the former.

Title
Considering the theme and messaging of the novel I think the title suffices even if it's fairly generic.

Characterization
All of the characters in this novel are well developed, fully realized characters with interesting personalities and flaws that naturally propel the plot. Angie is a complicated woman of fault and tribulations, and she serves as our conduit for the themes explored in the novel. The characters in this novel are entirely imperfect, which gives it a sense of realism.

Julian by far has the best character development. He grows as a person and becomes someone genuinely admirable. His final scene with Angie is such a "good for him" sort of vibe because god, Angie had it coming. She is such a monster. And I love that she's a monster. And I would have loved more that she was a monster if the themes and messaging did not actively contradict the events related to Angie.

The only person that we really struggle with is Nora. Nora is overwhelmingly underdeveloped with consideration to her relevance in the plot's concept. We are barely with her, and while her motivations are somewhat predictable, it's also somewhat bizarre. I personally live in an area that's been affected by children who've been tried as adults in the court system for their acts of violence and so when I read books that seem fascinated in the reasons why children kill, a lot of authors struggle with the why. Ordinary children will not resort to murder unless the circumstances are extraordinary. I feel that sometimes when it comes to novels with murders, especially with children, authors lack the understanding of what it truly means to take someone's life. Can children do it without remorse? Absolutely. But the context has to make sense. Nora's motivations and methodology feel entirely to mature for her age. When we finally get the version of events through her eyes, her actions seem cold and calculated.

Dialogue
The dialogue sounded naturally and flowed well.

Plot
So there's two plots going on. There's Nora shooting her brother, and the legal battle that ensues. And then there's the family drama between Julian and Angie's family. We spend far more time in the family drama and while it is interesting, it makes the book feel unbalanced as a result. We were brought together over this horrible shooting, but it seems like we are always in the past, building the timeline up to this shooting. I think both parts could have been in the story, but I don't think they were blended that well together.

Atmosphere
The locations came to life, the lore on skiing and painting seemed well researched. The law side seemed believable enough.

Theme
I believe this book ultimately contradicts the themes and messaging it's trying to propose. Let's set aside the fact that the messaging is as subtle as a sledgehammer.

A) The "Antagonist" of the Story is Kind of Right: The main plot around Nora revolves around trying to get her sentence reduced as much as possible, and to avoid her being tried as an adult and become locked up for life. The prosecutor is hardcore in favor of getting Nora the maximum sentence and he has political motivations in her conviction. While the prosecutor is somewhat morally bankrupt, I cannot help but feel that he was actually in the right when all things are said and done. Nora's account of what happened came off as cold and calculated. There's premeditation. There's intent to kill. It does not matter that Nora saw it as mercy because she saw the way her grandmother deteriorated. Children every day have grandparents with degenerative disease, but everyday children are not killing people in their age cohort or near their age cohort who have degenerative diseases. And by all accounts, Nora is an everyday child. There's nothing unique about her circumstance that would suggest she'd consider murder as the last resort solution that she herself had to commit. Especially if the book is arguing that Nora is of complete sound mind. I just can't believe that Nora is not a genuinely dangerous child when she seems so methodical in her planning.

B) Saying to yourself that you're forgiven doesn't mean you are: The end of the novel, Angie hugs her daughter and realizes she's been granted forgiveness but from who? From Nora? Certainly not Julian and debatably not David. While there are ways to receive spiritual forgiveness when physical amends are impossible, it doesn't feel like that's the case either. What has Angie learned? What is she truly sorry about? She seems to feel nothing about cheating on both Julian and David with each other. It's clear she harbors love for Julian even after everything that's happened. I'm a firm believer that nobody deserves mercy, which is precisely why you give it out. That mercy says nothing about the person who had done harm, but says everything about the victim. and in this context, it does not seem that any of Angie's victims truly forgive her. Julian absolutely doesn't (good for him), David clearly had to physically separate himself from her, and Angie admits to the reader she loved Nico more because he was Julian's kid, which makes Nora a victim, too. And it's sad that Nora is left with a mother who never loved her. There's a lot of audacity for Angie to say that she's touched forgiveness as if she's got a right to claim it. Nora receiving mercy makes sense to a certain degree. Again, it is more about the victims than the perpetrator. She unquestionably does not deserve to be forgiven, but the fact she receives it anyways is meaningful. Angie is only sorry when she's caught. So it feels wrong that she is the conduit of the themes and messaging and not Nora.

Prose
The Prose was readable and engaging. I was never bored of the book and genuinely wanted to know what happened next.

Deeply reminiscent of...something, but unfortunately something or someone I don't normally read and therefore cannot identify. I could have gone for a bit more resolution, but what was offered makes sense for the story.

I’m so impressed that ℙ𝕖𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 is Koval’s debut novel. It’s not only beautifully written but the complex characters, compelling story, and dual timelines all combined to make this hard to put down. I do think it’s important to mention that the content is difficult and quite sad, not a story I came out of feeling joyful but rather a slow burn that is powerful and thought-provoking.

The story is set mostly in a small mountain town in Colorado and a little bit in NYC. I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in CO and found the descriptions of the mountains and experiences of the characters to be spot on!

I did a combo of audio and print and can highly recommend both formats!

Pub day: January 28
Rating: 4.25/5⭐️

This book is everything. This is about how tragedy can't strike any of us at any time. I really wanted Nora to get out of there. I was happy for Julian, and sad for him. I was happy and sad for most of the characters. I also learned a lot about the legal process.
This was just perfection. The narrator was amazing! I would recommend this to anyone.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Netgallery, and Kristin Koval for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest feedback.

Synopsis: Angie Sheehan must turn to her first love, Julian, to salvage what is left of her family following the murder of her son Nico. For all intents and purposes, Julian and Angie have moved on since their relationship ended. However, devastating unspoken truths still linger between them as a result of a tragic accident several years prior. Angie and Julian are forced to address their shared history, their own feelings of guilt, and forgiveness.

Themes: Grief, Family Dynamics, Forgiveness

What I liked: I work in juvenile justice and was taken aback by how accurate the storyline around the justice system was. I was so taken aback that halfway through the book I had to look up Koval's biography. Needless to say, I was not surprised to learn that she is a former attorney. I also really appreciated the way in which Koval quietly and slowly painted a picture for the reader about why people hide things in relationships and the impact things left unsaid can ultimately have on relationships.

Gripe: My only gripe is the narrator of the audiobook. Therese Plummer would often articulate parts of sentences which very annoyingly broke up the cadence of the story. For instance, she would read a sentence like "'No,' said Angie" as "No. Said Angie." I nearly stopped listening because I found it to be very distracting from the writing. However, Koval's writing and storyline was enough to keep me invested.

Overall: Definitely would recommend this to readers who are interested in complex storylines and themes related to forgiveness. However, if you're someone who gets distracted by narrators, I would hold out for when the book is published (e.g., physical, ebook).

What a beautifully tragic debut novel. The main story is about Nora who has seemingly killed her older brother that has Huntington's disease.  As her parents (Angie and David) begin to pick up the pieces of their lives, they hired a local lawyer (Martine) to defend Nora in court. When Martine tells them, the case is too much for her to handle, David asks that she seek the help of her son Julian, a New York lawyer that specializes in juvenile defendants. Julian is Angie's former boyfriend. This book was full of twists and turns. A crazy twist that I didn't see coming. Family drama at it best!

5 stars

The narrator, Therese Plummer, was great, She was able to deliver multiple characters superbly.  The production quality was phenomenal.

4.5 ⭐️ This wasn’t on my radar until I came across a flood of glowing reviews on Instagram, and I had to know why. The story reads like a Jodi Picoult book and follows a shattered family in the aftermath of something unthinkable. The author brings up heavy questions and incorporates challenging themes that makes you think and feel with the characters. If you like audiobooks, the audio, with a full cast, was gripping and full of emotion.