A cerebral and inventive tale exploring the power of the subconscious.
In this debut gothic novel, a woman attempts to discover the meaning of her dreams.
Lynn is fascinated by her dreams, though her engineer fiance, Mike, is quick to dismiss them: “Dreams are just your brain sorting through irrelevancies, determining what goes in which folder, what gets tossed.” Because of his skepticism, she doesn’t bother to tell him when she dreams of him dying in a flash of splinters and glass. Then, the next day, Mike is killed in a car accident. Despite her training—Lynn is a therapist at a mental health clinic—she can’t get over her sense of grief, even after a year passes. A friend recommends she attend a retreat at the House of Sleep, a Victorian mansion that serves as a center for dream remembrance and interpretation. It is run by a guru known as DM, the Diving Man, a figure with a mysterious past who possesses a secret government drug called the One that serves as the basis for his treatment. There, Lynn becomes one of his Sleepers, as the community of monklike students is known. It is also there that she meets Daniel, a haunted young man in whom Lynn—and DM—quickly takes an interest. Lynn and Daniel have an unexpected connection: He may be just the person she needs to finally put her sorrow to bed. But first they may have to contend with whatever it is that DM has planned for them. Kelly’s prose is wonderfully moody, as here when Daniel comes to after an attempted exorcism by his Christian father: “Daniel did wake up—gradually, out of vaporous, ghostly dreams about dying—and lay awhile collecting evidence that night had come. His face was stiff and swollen with water—the best and failed effort of his father’s god to oust the demon.” The author succeeds in creating a creepy, paranoid atmosphere in which readers will often be left to wonder just what is true, what is false, and what is dangerous. DM is a captivating villain, though at times his monologues border on camp. There are moments when the plot drags, and the book is perhaps 50 pages longer than it should be. Even so, Kelly has created an indisputably original—and mind-bending—story using some classic gothic elements.
A cerebral and inventive tale exploring the power of the subconscious.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8-59-312863-8
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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