Evil lies beneath the surface in this gripping tale of bigotry and religious orthodoxy.
A gay couple and their two children move into a new home in a small, run-down town in Saxsma’s eerie thriller.
Dwayne and Ollie pack up their lives and take up residence in a house in the small town of Larton with Ollie’s two kids, teenage Jodi Lee and 5-year-old Sam. The author gives a long, cinematic description of the house, the crumbling town, and untended fields in the novel’s opening that sets an ominous tone. It’s 1987, and Dwayne suffers from an unnamed illness (all signs point to HIV). As the reader develops concern for Dwayne (who also struggles to impress Ollie’s kids), Ollie joins the sheriff’s department, where the community’s seedy underbelly is exposed: There’s a serial killer on the loose, called “The Visitor,” and catching the man becomes Ollie’s new unhealthy obsession. Meanwhile, Jodi befriends Beverly, whose conservative, religious family attends services where they chant that God “hates them and loves us.” It’s clear that gay men like Ollie and Dwayne are the target of this religious hatred, and Dwayne faces unsettling instances of bigotry throughout the novel, culminating in one deeply disturbing moment of violence. The depiction of small-town and evangelical closed-mindedness is hardly new, and the actions they inspire might be read by some as gratuitous. In the context of the 1980s setting and the established atmosphere of the book, however, every element feels of a piece. What’s more original is the breakdown of a same-sex relationship, which crescendos in a deft and momentous final act in which all the threads of the story finally come together. And that ending—perfection.
Evil lies beneath the surface in this gripping tale of bigotry and religious orthodoxy.Pub Date: March 31, 2023
ISBN: 9798218143909
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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