A grim, disconcerting tale of ghosts and supernatural assaults.
A 200-year-old spirit in search of a bride torments members of a family both living and dead in this paranormal thriller.
Michael Winworth has haunted the Winworth Manor for two centuries. He yearns for a bride but can only travel so far within his New York seaside town. So he coerces help from Mayor Jonathan Gilmore, over whom Michael has leverage. The ghost killed his wife, Karen, for planning to demolish the manor and now owns her soul. He’ll free her if the mayor brings him Jonathan’s 16-year-old niece, Sarah. Michael is enamored of her and vows to kill anyone who would act inappropriately toward her. A practitioner of dark magic when alive, Michael becomes a voice in Sarah’s head and appears before her inside her unconscious mind. He also has sex with her by force and by “lowering” her inhibitions, acts that the teen rightly deems rape. But when Sarah later faces living human menaces, Michael responds homicidally. Local cop Lt. Eric Johnson investigates and, notwithstanding Sarah’s ghost story, looks for a flesh-and-blood killer. Meanwhile, Michael threatens to murder Sarah’s dad, Robert, if she doesn’t willingly marry him in an eternal union. Drighton’s paranormal tale is frequently disturbing. Most notably, the narrative during Michael’s rape of Sarah is in the style of erotica: "This caused her opening to reveal more of her most forbidden fruit, and he longed to taste her sweet nectar.” But Michael’s villainy is unquestionable, as he periodically tortures his brother Jason’s soul. The dialogue-laden story is fitting for scenes with spirits, including Michael and Sarah’s mother, Helen, who tries helping her family. Things get progressively darker as certain characters become seedier and Michael eventually takes over someone’s body with unnerving results. Readers will likely anticipate more mayhem in the book’s final chapters.
A grim, disconcerting tale of ghosts and supernatural assaults.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68470-750-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This is the stuff of fairy tales—red shoes, ballrooms, mirrors, and thorns but also sincerity, poignancy, and terror.
A woman tangles with a cultlike spa and her own obsession with physical beauty in the wake of her mother’s death in this hypnotic tour de force.
Mirabelle Nour hasn’t lived with her mother in years, but she’s built a life that nevertheless feels like both a reflection and rejection of Noelle Des Jardins. She works in a dress shop, but not the one her mother co-owns in Southern California. She goes by Mira as an adult instead of Belle, the nickname Noelle always preferred. She puts a high premium on her appearance, just like her mother, but in a way Noelle struggles to understand: prioritizing elaborate skin care routines and collagen shakes over red lipstick and sun hats. When Noelle dies in a supposed accident, Mirabelle must come home to La Jolla and confront their disconnect. In the process, she finds her way to La Maison de Méduse, the home of the titular Rouge, which offers otherworldly spa treatments to clients in pursuit of their “Most Magnificent Self,” and uncovers long-suppressed childhood memories of a man who resembled Hollywood royalty. Awad approaches the increasingly well-trod ground of sinister wellness gurus with aplomb, creating an atmosphere of creeping discomfort and surreality right from the start. There is a lot to skewer about the beauty industry at large, but Awad smartly grounds her critique in the corrosive envy and misunderstandings that spring up between biracial Mirabelle and her white mother. Mirabelle is a singularly unreliable narrator, but readers who stick with her throughout bouts of confusion and peril will be richly rewarded.
This is the stuff of fairy tales—red shoes, ballrooms, mirrors, and thorns but also sincerity, poignancy, and terror.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982169695
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
A reasonably charming urban fantasy that could have used a more rigorous edit before primetime.
The latest in a series of rereleases from a prolific fantasist’s previously self-published works is a contemporary spin on the fairytale “Godfather Death.”
Viola Marek is an aswang, a shapeshifting vampire from Filipino folklore. She’s also a Chicago real estate agent trying to sell a mansion even while the ghost of its last owner, Thomas Edward Parker IV, is doing his supernatural best to block the sale. In a desperate attempt to earn her commission, she hires Fox D’Mora, Death’s mortal godson, to use his connection to get the ghost to leave. Unfortunately, Death is unavailable: He’s been kidnapped, and to get him back and prevent a worlds-spanning catastrophe, Fox, Vi, the ghost, and assorted other supernatural creatures will have to enter a high-stakes gambling game that usually only immortals can play…but rarely win. The story begins with an unusual blend of myth, fairy tale, and cosmology and inevitably descends to an almost unbearable level of sentimentality, which is simultaneously a refreshing change from Blake’s usual tableau of self-involved, selfish characters who seem driven toward tragedies of their own making. Blake could definitely do a better job at showing the love between characters rather than merely telling the reader that they’re in love. She also has an unfortunate tendency to skip potentially intriguing bits of backstory if they don’t immediately drive the plot along, which is why readers never learn anything about Fox’s childhood and what it was actually like having Death as a parent. Nor does she explain why only two of the four archangels, Gabriel and Raphael, play outsize roles in determining the order of the cosmos, while Uriel and Michael are nowhere to be seen. Bits of anachronism—like the use of a rubber band as aversion therapy 200 years ago or the presence of a magical wristwatch from a time long before watches were common—might be intended to be Pratchett-style humor or chalked up to magic? It’s hard to tell what’s intentional and what is simply careless. Now that Blake has a traditional publisher, perhaps the editors of her future novels will guide the author to address these issues when they arise.
A reasonably charming urban fantasy that could have used a more rigorous edit before primetime.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781250892461
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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