Haunting and powerful, this dark little gem of a novel is an absolute must-read.
Hardy’s debut novel, a fusion of gothic horror, mystery, and supernatural fiction, focuses on women dealing with profound loss and loneliness.
The story begins as police interview Eddy Sparrow for reasons that aren’t immediately clear to the reader.Eddy is a woman whose recently deceased mother—chair of the history department at Georgia State University—was sent a manuscript before her death that was found buried in a canister in the backyard of an abandoned estate. The property, located in northern Alabama, was allegedly haunted, as was the manuscript, which is rumored to curse anyone who reads it. As Eddy talks to the police officer in her home over tea, she shares the heartrending story recounted in the manuscript, which chronicles the tragic life of Cat, who lived on the estate with her mother, Sarah, and her mother’s cheating boyfriend, Ray—“the man who ate [Sarah] from the inside until there was nothing left.” Watching her mother be physically and emotionally abused by Ray while helpless to stop it, Cat is devastated when her mother dies; compounding her grief, the courts send the minor back to the house to live with her mother’s abuser. Parts of the manuscript include excerpts from Sarah’s journal, which includes horrific revelations and charts her descent into madness at the end of her life. The innovative structure of the narrative—a journal within a manuscript within a police interrogation—works well to keep the reader turning pages, and the impressively deep character development makes the cast members feel authentic, identifiable, and emotionally dimensional—particularly in the case of Cat and her intense relationship with her mother. The mystery surrounding Cat’s mother’s death is kept tantalizing beyond reach until the very last pages, where bombshell plot twists will have readers picking their collective jaws up off the floor. But it’s the creepy atmospherics and the author’s dark, lyrical writing style that makes the story so unforgettable: Hardy describes an old well covered with rotting wood planks at its center as a “huge mouth that drank in the darkness.”
Haunting and powerful, this dark little gem of a novel is an absolute must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781960018533
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Running Wild Press
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
