An intelligent and morally relevant, if sometimes-dense, fictional examination of America’s past.
A historical novel that tackles the European colonization of the Western continent.
Watkins greets readers with an intriguing metafictional premise: He’s found three memoirs of his ancestors, which tell stories that he describes as being “in the heart of American sin.” He uses these tales to tell a darkly satirical historical story—one that offers its readers a scathing indictment of colonialism. The first section is attributed to Robert Watkyns, born in 1584 in Talgarth, Wales. In search of excitement, land, and wealth, Robert and his uncle James were the first members of the family to make the voyage to Virginia, leaving behind Robert’s beloved, pregnant wife and infant son. Robert is determined to convert or kill the local Indigenous people he encounters, whom he calls the “naturals,” who’ve been living on the land for a millennium. He finally arrives in Jamestown in 1608, but he’s soon defeated by an unexpected antagonist. His tale is the longest in Watkins’ narrative and is dominated by the years leading up to his departure from Wales and his eight-month journey; it’s also the most challenging to read, composed in prose that approximates the effusive, long-winded linguistic style of the period. Still, this story and the one that follows it are edgy, distressing, and insightful. Part 2 of the novel advances more than two centuries to 1873; it’s authored by the penniless Aloysius Beauregard “Bo” Watkins as a makeshift last will and testament. Born in 1805, Bo is the son of Col. Robert T. Watkins III, a wealthy plantation owner who fought alongside Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Through Bo’s melancholy recollections and musings, readers effectively bear witness to the endemic mistreatment of Native Americans and the atrocities inflicted upon enslaved Black people. Bo, in his dotage, is at least revealed to possess a modicum of enlightenment with respect to the country’s shameful heritage. (The third of the promised memoirs, credited to Bob Watts, a CIA agent born in Illinois in 1925, is available as a separate work, not provided for review.)
An intelligent and morally relevant, if sometimes-dense, fictional examination of America’s past.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66570-708-4
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
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