While slow to get moving, this vampire tale unleashes plenty of paranomal suspense.
A suspicious murder in New Orleans ignites a supernatural, romantic thriller.
Viveca Moreau lived in a church-run orphanage after her parents died in a car accident. It wasn’t easy to grow up in New Orleans without a family to look after her: Once she was grabbed and nearly hurt in an alley by a man with a sinister air who “looked like a zombie.” Yet she was saved from harm by an even stranger man named Richard Ambrose. Viveca learned that Richard hailed from England, and she thought he “was as handsome as the princes in her fairy-tale books,” with dark hair that fell to his shoulders and eyes “of a color only God could have made.” But he disappears from her life (if not from her dreams) until, after years of hard work and a celibate existence, she becomes a homicide detective. Viveca is tough, but few things prepare her for investigating the murder of a college friend. The dead woman’s body has been drained of blood, and she has two bite wounds on her neck. All signs would point to murder by a vampire. But vampires aren’t real, are they? Viveca’s search for answers endangers her life, and as Richard again comes to her aid, she learns more about his past and realizes that she may have to save not just her life, but his. The story takes a slow path to its main events, first giving a glimpse of Richard’s past (a device perhaps influenced by Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire) and then of Viveca’s backstory, including her decision to study psychology in college and the stresses of her college job working in a print shop. Although these less-than-enticing details might have been explained more economically, once the blood starts spilling, the reader has a lot to consider. Will Viveca figure out what is going on in her beloved New Orleans? What will become of her developing relationship with Richard? Twists in the story are well placed, and even Viveca becomes surprised at where she might end up.
While slow to get moving, this vampire tale unleashes plenty of paranomal suspense.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-79606-109-3
Page Count: 274
Publisher: XlibrisUS
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-drawn characters introduce the criminal underworld to the occult kind in a breathless and compelling plot.
A Yale sophomore fights for her life as she balances academics with supernatural extracurriculars in this smart fantasy thriller, the second in a series.
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is a member of Lethe House, the ninth of Yale’s secret societies. And not just any member—she’s Virgil, the officer who conducts the society's rituals. In the world of Bardugo’s Alex Stern series, Yale’s secret societies command not just powerful social networks, but actual magic; it’s Lethe’s job to keep that magic in control. Alex is new to the role. She had to take over in a hurry after the previous Virgil, Darlington, her mentor and love interest, disappeared in a cliffhanger at the end of the first book. He appears to be in hell, but is he stuck there for good? Alex and Pamela Dawes—Lethe’s Oculus, or archivist/administrator—have found a reference to a pathway called a Gauntlet that can open a portal to hell, but can they find the Gauntlet itself? And what about the four murderers the Gauntlet ritual requires? Meanwhile, Alex’s past as a small-time drug dealer is catching up with her, adding gritty street crime to the demonic white-collar evil the Yale crowd tends to prefer. The plot is relentless and clever, and the writing is vivid, intelligent, and funny at just the right moments, but best of all are the complex characters, such as the four murderers, each with a backstory that makes it possible for the reader to trust them to enter hell and have the strength to leave again. Like the first book, this one ends with a cliffhanger.
Well-drawn characters introduce the criminal underworld to the occult kind in a breathless and compelling plot.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-31310-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.
The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas.
The protagonist of the title story, Holly Gibney, is by King’s own admission one of his most beloved characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. The insect-licious proceedings of the last are revisited, most yuckily, while some of King’s favorite conceits turn up: What happens if the dead are never really dead but instead show up generation after generation, occupying different bodies but most certainly exercising their same old mean-spirited voodoo? It won’t please TV journalists to know that the shape-shifting bad guys in that title story just happen to be on-the-ground reporters who turn up at very ugly disasters—and even cause them, albeit many decades apart. Think Jack Torrance in that photo at the end of The Shining, and you’ve got the general idea. “Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same,” King writes, “and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard.” In the careful-what-you-wish-for department, Rat is one of those meta-referential things King enjoys: There are the usual hallucinatory doings, a destiny-altering rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. Perhaps the most troubling story is the first, which may cause iPhone owners to rethink their purchases. King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier.
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.Pub Date: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3797-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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