A riveting, fresh interpretation of monsters.
A politician finds herself endangered by a quarrel going back centuries in this engaging supernatural thriller.
This rivalry begins in the American South in 1850. Aaron, an enslaved person, plans to escape the Virginia plantation on which he toils and start a new life in the North. Plans don’t work out for him, however. He’s attacked on the night he escapes and is left for dead by a giant beast. During the attack, the “beast,” a werewolf, changed Aaron into a werewolf. Now nearly invincible, Aaron kills the cruel plantation owner and his wife—vengeance, in part, for whipping Aaron’s beloved mother. Perhaps unwisely, the escapee spares their 8-year-old son, James. Following the Civil War, James becomes a vampire and later leads a clan of all-white vampires, which wars with Aaron’s pack of Black werewolves. Since both groups need to exist in shadows, they agree to a truce: neither will turn victims of the opposite race. This truce holds for decades, until an inexperienced werewolf attacks and turns Ally, a white congressional aide from South Carolina. Aaron stalls while deciding how to handle this unique situation. But the two sides begin slowly but inexorably slipping toward war as the werewolves attempt to protect Ally while the vampires try to kill her. Michel deserves credit for finding a different slant on an overused trope. Usually, vampires are portrayed as highbrow and the werewolves lowbrow, but Aaron’s pack is classy and stylish. Also, injecting racism as the dividing line between two types of monsters is inspired. The long-standing grudge that James holds against Aaron only ramps up the tension. The character who evolves the most is Ally. She starts as a conservative eager to pass a voting-restriction bill. But time spent with Aaron’s pack, as well as peril to her family, impacts her perspective on race and life. Characters other than her and Aaron aren’t as well developed, however. But altogether, this is a fascinating new take on old monsters, one that Michel has set up to continue as a series.
A riveting, fresh interpretation of monsters.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9798891578814
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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