“Soulmates” means something different in this entertaining psychological thriller.
A therapist and the patient she’s treating stumble into a shocking and life-threatening surprise.
When Santa Monica therapist Sarah Newcomb hypnotizes her patients, most of them remember past lives, decades or centuries ago. Not Marigold Chu. The young software engineer is a receptive patient, but under hypnosis, she describes another life that seems to be in the future—or even the present. That leads to two problems. One is information from Marigold’s other self about a coming industrial explosion, which Sarah feels compelled to report (anonymously) to the authorities. The other is the realization that, instead of being a garden-variety case of reincarnation, Marigold is somehow sharing a soul with a very much alive middle-aged Denver police detective named Brian Huntley. Those two issues soon bring an FBI agent to Sarah’s door: Grant Lukather from the agency’s Predictive Analytics unit. As the trio tries to figure out what’s going on, it quickly becomes clear that Brian is in jeopardy from a serial murderer nicknamed the Ash Killer, because of a substance he smears on his victims’ foreheads—an ash whose source police forensics can’t identify. Even stranger, the man identified as the Ash Killer is already in prison. Sarah, Marigold, and Grant dash off from California to Colorado to save Brian, sparks flying—Sarah is sort-of engaged to a good-enough boyfriend, Grant reeling from a tragic romantic loss, but it doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see they’re falling for each other. The book, the first novel by an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, does little to explain the phenomenon of Marigold and Brian’s tie other than some sketchy ideas about the exploding human population outrunning the supply of souls, but it’s used to good effect in relation to the Ash Killer. Sarah and Grant toss pretty much every protocol about how therapists and law enforcement officers are supposed to behave right out the window; if you’re willing to suspend disbelief about that and communal souls, this is a suspenseful and fast-paced tale.
“Soulmates” means something different in this entertaining psychological thriller.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781250384294
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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