An unforgiving past becomes a present-day menace in this gripping romantic thriller.
In Stanton’s thriller, an American falls for an Argentine woman whose dark family secrets may prove deadly.
In 1990, Los Angeles newspaper journalist Robert Wells catches a flight to Buenos Aires. On the day he lands, he meets Gabriela Roca Dafiume, a 20-something doctor who immediately helps him forget his recent divorce. She lives with her parents and her younger brother and is largely secretive; she doesn’t answer all of Robert’s questions and seems intent on keeping him away from her home. Things take a startling turn when Robert receives friendly warnings to avoid Gabriela’s family and full-on threats are left at his hotel. But the couple’s romance only deepens, both physically and emotionally. They can’t hide their relationship from her father, César Roca Steele, whom Gabriela describes as “possessive.” There’s a chance he already knows about them, as he likely has people following Robert and Gabriela. If it’s true César had something to do with one of Gabriela’s past lovers disappearing, then Robert is in serious danger. Stanton’s slow-burn story develops an absorbing romance. The couple’s shared scenes gradually intensify, and it’s easy to understand why Robert doesn’t hightail it back to L.A. A sinister tone pervades the narrative; César always seems to know where Robert is or what he’s up to, making Robert’s plan to unearth proof of wrongdoing all the more unnerving. Further reinforcing the novel’s suspense is a mystery surrounding the generally tight-lipped Roca family involving Gabriela and her brother, a priest. Throughout the narrative, the author aptly details Buenos Aires and its people. One passage memorably evoking life outside the lovers’ bedroom describes “aromas of coffee, tucos or tomato sauces, chitterlings and churrascos from the neighbors’ kitchens” and “windblown fig leaves rubbing like sandpaper against the balcony.”
An unforgiving past becomes a present-day menace in this gripping romantic thriller.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781962984492
Page Count: 343
Publisher: Waterside Productions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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