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
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
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