A Boxing Match, Family Secrets, and Christmas Bring an Unforeseen Future - an Editorial Review of "Boxing Day"

Book Blurb:

Donora, Pennsylvania—December, 1923

It’s Christmastime and twenty-four-year-old Socialite, Wrenly Hawthorne, is teetering between the comfort of family wealth and her risky drive for independence. Feeling estranged from friends and at odds with her parents, she is searching for “something more.” With keen interest in the freedom that the women’s right to vote should have brought, she studies the stock market and plans to attend school. She is sure she can build the life she wants, but will she risk everything to do it?

Enter boxer Cyril Mankovic. He returns to Donora after his mother dies while giving birth to his one and only sister, Olive. He is unprepared for what she and his seven younger brothers need and he is shocked that his father has no plan to care for them. Cyril’s quest to make fast money for his family brings him face-to-face with Wrenly at the moment she is firmly declining the proposal of a very “suitable man.” A WWI veteran, Cyril earns money barnstorming the country, living a life where only his needs matter. But the longer Cyril is home the more his sense of responsibility develops.

Family secrets, a Boxing Day boxing match, an exclusive women’s investment club, and the magic of the Donora holiday season merge Wrenly and Cyril’s paths in unforeseen ways. Is their growing affection enough to overcome their differences? Join them as the wonder of love and family challenges everything they thought they knew.

Book Buy Links: https://geni.us/zykm

Author Bio:

Bestselling author, Kathleen Shoop, holds a PhD in reading education and has more than 20 years of experience in the classroom. She writes historical fiction, women’s fiction and romance. Shoop’s novels have garnered various awards in the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Indie Excellence Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Readers’ Favorite and the San Francisco Book Festival. Kathleen has been featured in USA Today and the Writer’s Guide to 2013. Her work has appeared in The Tribune-Review, four Chicken Soup for the Soul books and Pittsburgh Parent magazine. Kathleen coordinates Mindful Writing Retreats and is a regular presenter at conferences for writers.

I adore writing historical fiction (The Letter series, After the Fog and Donora Stories that are coming soon!) but am having a blast writing romance like Home Again, Return to Love and Tending Her Heart (Endless Love series). Thank you so much for the time you take to read.

Editorial Review:

Title: Boxing Day

Author: Kathleen Shoop

Publisher: Independently Published

ISBN: 979-8869924919

Rating: 5 Stars

"Boxing Day" by Kathleen Shoop is a stirring, heartfelt novel set in Donora, Pennsylvania, in December 1923- a steel town still reeling from war, loss, and the quiet ache of unspoken dreams. Shoop paints her setting with grit and tenderness, evoking the economic hardship and emotional claustrophobia of the era without ever lapsing into nostalgia. The story hinges on two people- Cyril Mankovic, a former soldier and boxer struggling under the weight of duty, and Wrenly Hawthorne, the daughter of a domineering businessman, who meet at the blurry edge of privilege and poverty, silence and rebellion, tradition and selfhood.

Cyril, at first glance, could be mistaken for a working-class stereotype- a bruiser, hardened by fists and factory life but Shoop quickly complicates him. His backstory arrives not with a dramatic flashback, but with quiet resignation:

“He was eighteen when his father threw him out of the house. Cyril spent time in the Army then barnstormed the country, boxing his way through small towns. Though it had felt like heaven to be out from under his dad during those years away, he faithfully wrote his mother and seven brothers, mailing portions of his winnings from every fight.”

In just a few lines, Shoop establishes both Cyril’s emotional core and the thematic backbone of the novel: endurance. He doesn’t brood or wallow- he moves, he writes, he sends money home. These are not the gestures of a hero, but of a man who believes in quiet responsibility. That makes him emotionally unavailable in the way many real people are, not out of coldness, but exhaustion. His sense of worth is measured in what he can carry.

Shoop crafts Wrenly with a similarly layered approach. She is no damsel, and certainly not a rebellious caricature. Her discontent simmers rather than boils. Raised in privilege and groomed for a social marriage, Wrenly hides her curiosity beneath propriety until the urge to understand Cyril- truly understand him- leads her to do something bold and strangely intimate:

“She didn’t know exactly what type of man Cyril was, but palooka didn’t seem an accurate description. She’d already taken the time to sneak into her father’s study and dig through his boxing files searching for mentions of Cyril. She’d found a couple, and the commentary on his fighting indicated he had smooth footwork, was patient and studied in his approach to opponents... The sportswriters said all Cyril Mankovic needed was a manager and a reliable second.”

This is not flirtation but scholarship. In a world where her opinion is supposed to come secondhand- from her father, her suitors, the society pages- Wrenly seeks truth at the source. That she finds Cyril not brutal but strategic only deepens her need to question what else she’s been misled to believe. Shoop never makes a show of Wrenly’s intellect, but it radiates through action- through study, a word that becomes as important to her as it is to Cyril.

Their connection deepens not in ballrooms or moonlight strolls, but through mutual risk. Cyril holds Wrenly’s secrets- literally. In a moment that slips by in the narrative but lands with impact, Shoop shows us the weight of what Wrenly must conceal:

“Wrenly sighed. She thought of the shadowboxing book. Then about her book on finances that she’d given to Cyril to hide from her parents. She was supposed to have that book when she arrived at the meeting. She raced out the door. There was no time to get it now.”

In an era where women were discouraged from touching money, Wrenly reads financial texts and prepares for secret meetings. This isn’t a “modern girl ahead of her time” trope but someone wrestling with invisible boundaries. And the fact that she entrusts Cyril with that book, that piece of herself, says as much about their bond as any romantic moment would.

What makes "Boxing Day" shine is how un-showy it is. Shoop resists melodrama, her prose is spare but musical, often conveying as much through what isn’t said as what is and her pacing reflects her characters- deliberate, wounded, guarded, resilient. This isn’t a love story built on sweeping declarations, but on slow accumulation of risk, of trust and of emotional truth.

By the novel’s close, there are no grand finales, no climactic reveals. Instead, we find something more lasting: two people who’ve clawed their way toward clarity, and who decide delicately and deliberately to begin. That’s the beauty of "Boxing Day." It doesn’t reward us with fantasy but with emotional realism- bruised but hopeful, stark but warm. In the end, Shoop offers her readers not a happily ever after, but something braver- a mutual willingness to keep going, together.

Award:

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