Short stories for readers who like their horror tales diverting and diverse.
In Bonfitto’s (The Lineman, 2013, etc.) horror collection, Asbury Park, New Jersey, provides the setting for seven strange, spooky stories.
This quirky book amasses a hodgepodge of tales, all delving into the supernatural but each sporting a distinctive style. It opens with “The Scorekeeper,” which reads like a young-adult story: Teenager Adam and his mother tell everyone that a heart arrhythmia limits his outdoor activities, but it’s really his inability to control his telekinetic power when he’s upset. The decidedly more solemn “Harbinger” follows a man named Lee, who keeps seeing a screaming girl near the train tracks—a girl that apparently no one else can see. In “The Circuit,” a bored family man undergoes a midlife crisis that turns into a terrifying ordeal. “Dead and Breakfast” is a darkly humorous riot: Cousins Patsy and Max and their pal, Christopher, open a Victorian bed-and-breakfast that just may be haunted, and two reality shows compete for a live Halloween broadcast to verify the presence of ghosts. Bonfitto also tackles a number of relevant social issues within these pages: Adam’s paranormal faculty, for example, flares up when he’s victimized by bullies. Most of the stories stay in familiar supernatural territory, but the author effectively puts her own stamp on each one. The collection reaches its summit with “Eminent Domain,” a fantastic yarn in which a “zombie march” of costumed revelers on the Asbury Park boardwalk comes to a halt when cadavers from a macabre art exhibit decide to make actual zombies out of the participants. Bonfitto breathes new life into this story of the undead, and although it’s violent (as the zombies munch on human flesh), it’s much less graphic than similar tales. But although “Eminent Domain” sharply contrasts with the YA style of “The Scorekeeper,” both fit in quite nicely in this eclectic collection.
Short stories for readers who like their horror tales diverting and diverse.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1312486102
Page Count: 236
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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