Occasionally formulaic but jam-packed with elements that will give readers the heebie-jeebies.
In Lunden’s horror debut, a rash of strange events in a small town surrounds a gingerbread house and the creepy old woman residing there.
The accident that Bulwark sheriff Clay Finnes is investigating seems fairly straightforward: a car stuck in the middle of a pond. But the vehicle’s elderly passengers claim that a witch took their children and is holding them hostage in the Bavmorda Gingerbread House on Linden Lane. Clay has never heard of that street, but dispatcher Dolly Summars knows where it is—and she implores the sheriff to forget all about it. He finds the house and its occupant, an old woman with black eyes and tangled hair, but no captives. (Later, people in town tell him that the house he visited had burned down years ago.) There have been other strange incidents in Bulwark, though, including numerous wolf sightings, and things only escalate with the discovery of a mutilated body. Clay also learns of a break-in at his wife Jenna’s place on Timber Lane. Their marriage had fallen apart a year before, after the abduction of their daughter, Claire; but now, someone has taken some of Claire’s things, and Jenna thinks that the girl could still be alive. Clay is sure that there’s something evil out there stealing children, and he’s committed to saving his missing daughter. Although Lunden’s fairy-tale-infused horror outing is relatively short, it’s rich in melodrama. Clay’s tireless love for Jenna, for example, is threatened by Bulwark Advance reporter Dayna Dalton—whose unrequited affection for the sheriff aided in the couple’s separation—and nurse Jenna’s muscled co-worker, Dr. Peter Kent. There are conventionally spooky things happening at Linden Lane: a relentless wind, a screeching gate. But other details are inspired, such as the Georgia clay that coats everything in crimson, akin to the surface of Mars—or, simply, blood. Much of the book thrives on suspense, with the sheriff hearing distant howls and witnessing the aftermath of violence. The final act is more overtly exciting, although a bit predictable, and Lunden gives readers a choice between two endings.
Occasionally formulaic but jam-packed with elements that will give readers the heebie-jeebies.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 51
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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