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PRAISE HER, PRAISE DIANA

Gruesome revenge for rape jumps from fiction to real life in this multilayered thriller.
Best-selling author Maggie Edwards has recently finished writing a new book, but it’s not the one she promised her editor and publisher, who want to serialize it in their new weekly magazine, Femme. A mysterious caller named Diana has forced her to write about a woman, also named Diana, who takes vengeance on male rapists by killing them and cutting off their genitals. When the New York Portal publishes the first chapter without his approval, the publisher threatens to sue, but he changes his mind when a real, copycat Diana starts delivering bodies, creating a media frenzy. Who is this Diana, and what does she really want? Maggie’s lawyer, Jane, becomes a friend and then more to Maggie as the phone harassment continues, egging Maggie on to write new chapters about Diana and her horrific rape by two men. Diana gains the sympathy of women until the Eumenides, a radical feminist group, begins to emulate her, dressing alike and attacking and killing sexist males. As their relationship deepens, Jane discovers that Maggie has a secret, one she promises to reveal. The action moves from crime scene to courtroom to bedroom, but when a gang rape leads to a violent confrontation between police and the Eumenides, Maggie has to wrestle with her own past to reach a decision. The veteran writing team of Rothman-Hicks and Hicks (Things Are Not What They Seem, 2014, etc.) delivers a complex, topical thriller. Though the violence is indeed ghastly, memorable characters bring diversity and depth to the story. There are a few quite moving passages, and there is a palpable sense of loss on several levels. There are also bumps: The use of different points of view is effective but sometimes confusing. Some of the internal dialogue comes off as stilted and repetitive. And more detail is needed about how “Diana” gets her information.
A suspenseful tale of violence and loss.

Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2014

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 369

Publisher: Melange Books, LLC

Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014

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THE IDEA OF YOU

A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.

When Solène Marchand takes her 12-year-old daughter to a concert by the hottest boy band on the planet, she doesn't expect to fall in love with one of the singers.

Middle-aged art gallery owner Solène hasn’t dated since her divorce, but when her ex-husband buys their daughter and a group of her friends tickets to Vegas and a backstage concert experience, then backs out at the last minute, she steps in as escort. The five guys in the wildly popular English boy band August Moon appeal to women of all ages, but Hayes, the brains behind the group’s success, flirts with Solène at the concert meet and greet, invites them to a party after the show, then pursues her once she gets back to Los Angeles. He’s only 20 and he’s incredibly famous; his attention is flattering and heady. The two fall into an affair that’s supposed to be light and easy, but before long they can’t ignore their intense emotional attachment. Solène is hesitant to tell her daughter, but when she procrastinates, Isabelle learns about it through an online tabloid, which damages their relationship and leaves Solène open to censure from her ex. Then, once the affair goes viral, she experiences the darker side of Hayes’ fan base. What started out as a jaunty adventure turns into an emotionally fraught journey, and Solène must decide what she’s willing to risk for her happiness and what she won’t risk for her daughter’s. Actress Lee, who appeared in Fifty Shades Darker, debuts with a beautifully written novel that explores sex, love, romance, and fantasy in moving, insightful ways while also examining a woman’s struggle with aging and sexism, with a nod at the tension between celebrity and privacy.

A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.

Pub Date: June 13, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-250-12590-3

Page Count: 384

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

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