A fast, fun, and freaky tale in the Halloween spirit.
Three school friends go hunting for ghosts and discover that monsters are real in this middle-grade adventure from Marie.
Cody Kistler moved from California to Fremont, Ohio, at the start of fifth grade. Now he and his best friend—goofy, ketchup-obsessed Brad—have started high school. After dark they like to play at ghost hunting along with Cody’s neighbor and second-best friend (not girlfriend), Stevie. One night at the local cemetery, the three ghost hunters hear an inhuman shriek and stumble upon a crystal coffin. This proves to be the first of several coffins they uncover—and their first supernatural encounter. Mythical creatures are loose in Fremont, connected in some way to all the old schools that are being torn down and replaced. Cody and friends are determined to investigate, but the beasts are shape-shifters. In human form they could be anyone from Cody’s new teachers to the strangely dressed, disconcerting artist whose works underpin the library’s new mythical creatures exhibit. Events come to a head over Halloween at the Haunted Hydro theme park. Can Cody, Brad, and Stevie identify the summoner of monsters, or will the triad of evil—ancient creatures of the air, sea and land—run rampant? Marie, the author of Brutus Makes a Mask (2020), writes in the first-person, past tense from Cody’s point of view, imbuing him and Brad and Stevie with engaging teen personalities. Other characters come and go and never detract from the story, but it’s the three protagonists who pull readers in. Their dynamic is delightfully realized, full of banter, compassion, and, occasionally, abrasion, balanced with the burgeoning awkwardness that comes from maintaining a boy-girl-boy friendship triangle among adolescents. Realistic dialogue adds to the believability, and the story unfolds in crisp prose. Older readers might find the mystery element relatively undeveloped—or at least too quickly resolved. Some may also feel that Marie doesn’t fully establish the stakes of having elemental creatures unchecked in the world. A death or two would certainly have added some horror credibility. But that is to an extent immaterial. Events play out at a rapid pace, and younger readers will revel in the implied threat—and hope this will be the first of many adventures for Cody, Stevie, and Brad.
A fast, fun, and freaky tale in the Halloween spirit.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-46902-434-7
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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