I was immediately gripped! Part mystery, contemporary fiction, and legal procedural this is a story of family, love, loss, mental health, and forgiveness. This story was told in dual timelines and added so much depth to the story!

Fans of books by Celeste Ng and Mad Honey will enjoy this one! I thought it was such a stunning debut!

Every one of these characters was messy and deeply flawed - I effing love stories about empathizing with people who do bad things. So good and so deeply human of a story. I was hooked!

Penitence
📆 Pub Date: 1/28/25

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Wow…I’m blown away that this is a debut!! This is a character driven family drama that is told in multiple POV and timelines.

The book begins with Angie and David’s 13 year old daughter, Nora (love when my name’s in a book😉), who killed her brother. The family has to connect with Angie’s first love for legal help.
I went into this blind and absolutely devoured it. 🎧I listened mainly to the audiobook which was amazing!! The narrator did such an amazing job making you really connect to the characters emotions.
It is slow paced as you slowly learn about Angie and Martine’s past. I had to know what was going to happen next and couldn’t stop listening! I was hopeful for a different ending but nonetheless this book was brilliant! I am excited to read what Kristin Koval writes next!!

Thank you @netgalley and @celadon for this ARC!!!

I was hooked from the beginning as Penitence offers an intriguing plot line. Angie and David's 13-year-old daughter shoots and kills her older brother at close range. Yikes! Needless to say, the family is thrown into a nightmare - a dead son and a daughter who is charged with murder. So why would a young teen commit such a heinous act? It turns out her brother, Nico, has juvenile Huntington’s disease, a horrible diagnosis with no cure. The strain on the entire family becomes evident, with mounting medical needs costing thousands of dollars and nothing much left to defend Nora. Enter a small-town lawyer who also happens to be the mother of Angie’s first love, Julian, who is a successful New York City attorney. When the storyline goes back to an earlier time to Angie and Julian's romance, I became bored with the pacing, and I wanted the story to go back to the present. The book has many thought-provoking themes: love, betrayal, trust, and forgiveness. The main characters were well-developed, and the book allowed me to think about this difficult situation differently. Overall, I enjoyed the book and thought it was an impressive debut.

This debut novel grips you from the beginning with a shocking tragedy that keeps you turning pages to understand these complicated characters and what’s happened in their lives. This family drama explores the themes of guilt, grief, parenting, blame, choices, forgiveness and asks the question - are people defined by the worst mistake they ever made? How do we forgive ourselves? I have seen this book compared to Ann Patchett and Celeste Ng, I think readers of Tracey Lange will also enjoy this book!

Thank you Kristin Koval and Celadon books for the gifted digital ARC for review!!

Penitence begins in the moments after the unthinkable happens — 13-year-old Nina fatally shoots her older brother, Nico. The killing is seemingly inexplicable, and parents Angie and David are left living in the aftermath with their son dead and their daughter charged with his murder.

But the impacts of Nina's actions ripple far beyond her immediate family. It stretches throughout their small community and reopens old wounds as the case ensnares the town's only available defense lawyer and her son, Julian, alongside his tangled history with Angie.

Penitence is a tense and heartbreaking character study. Author Kristin Koval submerges the reader in the complexities of grief, healing and the complications of past decisions. It's a quietly intimate and authentic slow burn.

However, the pacing lagged in some places as the plot drifted too far into introspection, often sacrificing momentum and more grounded plot developments.

That being said, Penitence is a stunning and poignant debut.

✨ 4

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and Celadon Books for the advance copy in exchange for my review.

Opening with the death of a 14 year old boy at the apparent hands of his 13 year old sister, Penitence probes the fault lines of mistakes, guilt, self-blame and secrets that link this one, terrible moment with so many instances in the past. In each of the characters, secrets, anger and guilt follow their own unique pathways---each life marked by the choice to release pain or nourish it. These are choices that must be made by the characters over and over and over again, until they bind themselves to the collective costs of these decisions. Overall, Penitence is a well-crafted story, and I found myself empathizing with even the more dislikable characters, a testament to Kristin Koval's skill. Well-suited for readers who enjoy the intersection of literary fiction with a psychological mystery element.

Many thanks to Celadon Books and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy; the opinions expressed, as always, are exclusively my own.

This one is a little hard for me to review because while I loved the story, it moved so slow for me. Between that and the long chapters, it seemed to drag and didn't always hold my interest. I also felt like the ending left me with unanswered questions.

I did like how this book touched on parenting, loss, grief, and forgiveness. There were parts that were so sad and made me wonder how I would handle the situation if I were in Angie's position. I thought the dual timelines and multiple POVs were well done.

This is the authors debut novel, and I will definitely be interested in reading her next book!

3.5 rounded to 4 ⭐️

This beautifully written debut is a thought provoking and character driven story about loss, grief, broken trust, but also finding ways to forgive and move on.

I have always enjoyed dual timeline books but I found this book to be a slower burn, most likely because of the longer chapters. While I was engaged in the story at a surface level, I wasn’t enthralled and captivated. The ending left so many questions unanswered, which can sometimes be good and cause me to pause and reflect. However, this was a bit underwhelming at the end.

I know many will enjoy this and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Thank you Celadon Books and Netgalley for the advanced eARC.

This novel is very reminiscent of a Jodi Picoult novel. The ethical dilemmas, the emotional tension and backdrop of a criminal act and subsequent case. I liked this book, even though it went places I didn’t expect. The characters are a little hard to root for which kept me at a distance and made it just a little bit harder to get invested. Overall, I really enjoyed this and can see a lot of readers liking it!

Penitence by author Kristin Koval is a layered, emotionally rich debut that explores how the weight of past mistakes can echo across decades. Koval has crafted a thoughtful and poignant novel that will resonate with fans of literary fiction. While it’s not a traditional page-turner in the fast-paced sense, the emotional depth and complexity made it genuinely hard to put down and would make an excellent book club selection.

The story begins with a shocking crime that upends the Sheehan family and leads Angie to reconnect with Julian—her first love and the son of the small-town lawyer now representing her family. Their history adds an emotional undercurrent that builds quietly but powerfully as the narrative moves between timelines and settings, from rural Colorado to pre-9/11 New York City.

Koval explores themes of guilt, redemption, familial loyalty, and forgiveness with nuance and care. The pacing is measured, but the payoff lies in the character development and the introspective nature of the story. It asks readers to consider what defines us—our worst decisions or the growth and grace that follow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for my free review copy.

Penitence offers the beautiful character development often seen in literary fiction combined with the page turning intensity of a mystery.

Two families intertwined through shared grief are forced to work together after years of estrangement to advocate for a 12 year old girl who has shot her brother in cold blood with no explanation.

Angie and Julian, childhood best friends turned high school sweethearts, are forever changed after a tragic accident that occurs on their watch. Decades later, when Angie is challenged with the inexplicable balance of grieving for her son while also navigating her daughter’s trial, she has no choice but to rely on the legal representation offered by her ex boyfriend and his mother.

There is so much character study in this story, each character has been affected by both tragedies in one way or another and grapples with how to survive the guilt and grief. There are so many blurred lines, so many morally gray decisions and actions taking place throughout the story, up until the very end.

I really enjoyed this one and found myself struggling to put it down. I think I hoped for more insight into Nora and why she shot her brother, I do feel like I wanted more from this arc. But I realized by the end that this was meant to be more Annie and Julian’s story and it was equally as engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon for my copy of this book: all opinions are my own.

The news goes nationwide. A thirteen-year old girl has shot and killed her brother. Nora is the daughter of Angie and David Sheehan and everyone had always thought she adored her big brother Nick. It's been a hard year in the Sheehan family as Nick had been diagnosed with juvenile Huntington's disease and that is a death sentence. Nora had been depressed along with Nick and Angie and David had been at maximum stress as well.

This is not the first death Angie has grieved. When she was a teenager, her little sister had died skiing on a trip with Angie and her boyfriend Julian. The result of that was that Julian was sent away from the Colorado town where they all grew up to finish high school in New York and live with his grandmother. Angie's mother blamed the accident on Julian and in such a small town, Julian's parents thought it was best to send him away. All the parents believed that this ended Julian and Angie's relationship but they found a way to keep it going until college where they both went to colleges close enough to be together. But ultimately, the relationship had not worked out and Angie returned home to Colorado and married David.

The only lawyer in town with any experience in a death case is Julian's mother, Maxine. She reluctantly takes the case but knows she is over her head which she tells Angie and David. David asks if Julian, who became a criminal defense lawyer in a large New York firm, could help and he agrees although he is not really sure how things will work out as he hasn't seen or spoken to Angie in over fifteen years. But he still has enough feelings that he doesn't want to see Nora sentenced to life and since she has not spoken since she shot the gun, no one knows her reasons.

Kristin Koval is a former lawyer herself but she always wanted to write. This is her debut novel and it has received a ton of buzz. The big shocker was too clearly hinted at and I guessed it halfway through but this was a great book and I look forward to reading more by her in the future. This book is recommended for legal thriller and women's fiction readers.

When 13-year-old Nina shoots and kills her older brother, it has a ripple effect that leaves several people’s lives forever changed. Her mother, Angie, must reconcile mourning her son with forgiving her daughter. Her lawyer, Martine, is challenged by this case like no other as she tries to figure out why Nina did it. And old wounds are reopened when Martine brings in her lawyer son Julian (who is also Angie’s ex-boyfriend) to help on the case.

If you love character-driven stories, legal dramas, and family sagas, this book is for you. It’s powerful and often heartbreaking, with characters you will come to deeply care about. I guessed most of the “twists” in this book well ahead of the reveals, but this isn’t a thriller where the twists are the point of the story. More important are the characters and their relationships, which are well developed and compelling. This book also makes some poignant points about the ways the justice system often fails young offenders.

If you’re looking for a book that will immediately draw you in, this is one worth checking out.

Each of us is more than the worst thing we have ever done. - Byron Stevenson.
Angela’s family has unraveled after her daughter takes the life of her son in this incredible and heartbreaking debut. Suspenseful and beautifully written. I could not put this down. My favorite read this year!! I look forward to more from this author and wish I had read it sooner! Thank you, NetGalley!

Something ugly happened in Colorado. The kind of thing that makes small towns lock their doors at night and whisper behind closed curtains. Now Angie and David Sheehan are desperate enough to ask Martine Dumont for help - the same Martine whose son Julian left more than just footprints in their lives twenty years ago.

Here’s the thing about the past: it doesn’t stay buried in the snow. Julian’s traded his mountain boots for Italian leather, building a reputation as New York’s go-to defense attorney. But when Angie walks into his office, that carefully constructed life starts to crack. Some wounds don’t heal - they just scab over, waiting for someone to pick at them.

Between the knife-edge peaks of Colorado and Manhattan’s concrete canyons, old secrets are stirring. And in the months before the Twin Towers fall, two people who never got their ending right are about to learn that guilt, like gravity, pulls hardest when you’re trying to run from it.

Kristin Koval delivers a remarkable debut novel—one that’s truly unforgettable! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you @netgalley @celadonbooks @kristinkovalwriter for the opportunity to read this arc.

Wow! This book is brilliant and remains hopeful while tackling some devastating and heavy topics. It is hard to give a summary without revealing any plot twists, but the overall plot line centers on how a family faces an impossible tragedy when their 14 year old daughter shoots and kills her 15 year old brother. The parents, Angie and David, seek assistance from their a local lawyer (and her son, Julian) who agree to represent the daughter for her upcoming trial. The reconnection of these two families dredges up a prior tragedy 25 years ago, so the novel is told with flashbacks to that past event and the prior relationship between Angie and Julian and their eventual split.

This book explores grief, guilt, regret, forgiveness, and love with poignant snapshots into the main characters’ lives. As a mother to a 3 teen kids I was completely invested in how this tragedy occurred and what the outcome would be for their child. Tightly plotted, beautiful prose, and fantastic characterization make Penitence a stand out novel of 2025. These characters go THROUGH it, and I felt as if I was living their journey with them!

A solid 4 star book for me, this story brough on so many emotions and you could truly feel for the characters and what they were going through. A fabulous debut. At times it felt a little long but I recognize that it isn't a thriller but a slow burn suspense with strong character development. I enjoyed reading how everything unraveled at the end.

I liked the premise of this book, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. It was ok but not great, in my humble opinion. The writing was good and the pace of the book fine, but I couldn't warm up to any of the characters. It makes readers wonder how they would react if faced with such a tragedy, and different points of views are described at length. Sad and heartbreaking, Penitence will make you shed a tear or two.
Thank you Netgalley and Celadon books for my advanced copy.

I truly enjoyed this novel; the characters were well-developed, and the engaging plot made it a great read.