An absurdly humorous novel of the paranormal whose enthusiasm and profundity make it truly exceptional.
In Corley’s debut fantasy/comedy, a ghost learns that the afterlife has its own unique set of pitfalls, including direct threats from demons.
When Jonah Preston sunk all his money into his Austin, Texas, home, he certainly didn’t anticipate that it would be haunted. The ghost of the previous owner, Willard Hensch, wants him and his best friend and roommate, Maxim “Max” Alvarez, to get out—and no amount of Ouija-board negotiations can change his mind. Willard even threatens murder, and sure enough, Jonah awakens one morning to find that he’s no longer in the corporeal world. Adjusting to the ghost life is initially a breeze: he figures out how to move physical objects, finds a way to communicate with Max, and even befriends an angel named Seph. His real troubles begin after he helps a few other spirits move on to “the next place.” This connects him with the Psy-kicks, a team of Ghostbusters-like paranormal investigators (soon including Max) that Jonah legitimizes by ensuring that unruly ghosts are irrefutably gone. Unfortunately, Jonah’s notoriety among other spirits catches the attention of demons. Willard continues to demand that Jonah and Max get out of his house, and he teams up with dangerous partners who are more than happy to take Jonah on. Corley’s tale is largely played for laughs; Jonah and Max drop frequent one-liners and are undaunted by the ones that fail (“Look, they can’t all be gems,” Jonah asserts). But the story also boasts its share of sincere moments. Jonah’s choice to help ghosts move on, for example, is a purely selfless one, and a lengthy final-act discussion of angels and demons is surprisingly insightful. Although it’s clear that he has some natural skills as a ghost, the way that he masters one ability is disappointingly easy, involving him recalling the 1990 film Ghost and the Japanese anime Dragon Ball Z. The story is thoroughly resolved but also offers a tease for potential sequels.
An absurdly humorous novel of the paranormal whose enthusiasm and profundity make it truly exceptional.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-04841-2
Page Count: 344
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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