While not exactly innovative, a highly entertaining, speculative glimpse of the end of the world.
A debut novel offers a fusion of apocalyptic fiction, SF, and horror that chronicles a family’s struggle to survive after civilization collapses.
In near-future Southern California, 20-year-old Grace Baker’s life is turned upside down when terrorists destroy the national power grid, effectively throwing the country into chaos. Her father, a former military man who used to have top-secret clearance, succeeds in getting his family (which includes Grace, her mother, and her older brother) out of Los Angeles before the city is bombed to rubble by an unknown adversary. Dodging roving bands of criminals and collecting valuable goods along the way, the Bakers make it north to a secluded cabin they own hidden in a remote forest. But their chances of survival are greatly reduced when they realize that the post-apocalyptic world is now inhabited by invisible monsters that are hunting humans like prey. One by one, Grace’s family members are killed until she is left alone to fend for herself. While on a scavenging mission in a nearby town, she fatefully meets Nick Gates, a young cafe worker (and potential love interest) she knew from “Before.” Together they decide that they need to figure out a way to kill the monsters, even if it means dying in the process. While the story’s apocalyptic setting brings nothing new to the table and the invisible-monster thread has more than a few plot holes, Shannon delivers the goods by creating characters that are identifiable and emotionally compelling. Grace, for example, is a book nerd and analytical problem solver who turns out to be an ultimate badass at world’s end. Her bond with Nick is tumultuous and complicated but also undeniably authentic—and the evolution of that relationship throughout the horrors they face is an unarguable strength of this utterly readable tale.
While not exactly innovative, a highly entertaining, speculative glimpse of the end of the world.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63867-004-9
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
DYSTOPIAN FICTION | SCIENCE FICTION | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT DYSTOPIAN FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT MYSTERY & THRILLER | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION | APOCALYPTIC & POST APOCALYPTIC SCI-FI | SUSPENSE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE
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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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