A smoothly written but underdramatized novel about a toxic relationship between housemates in Southern California.
Chicago writer and teacher Macon Fleischer debuts with a suspense novel about a woman whose life turns creepy after a con artist responds to her Craigslist ad for a roommate.
Twenty-five-year-old Donna is lucky enough to inherit a bungalow in sunny Southern California from her grandmother, a welcome change from dreary Chicago, shortly before Donald Trump becomes president. But right off the bat, things are odd. There are no personal effects of grandma Rudy, strange noises emanate from the attic, and in the spirit of countless psychological thrillers, Donna feels she’s being watched. She’s determined to begin a new life, but her job as a receptionist at a beauty salon pays little, and the town of Topanga is a bit pricey. Forced to find a roommate, she ignores huge red flags when her Craigslist ad brings a response from the older, gay Joshua Flowers, who had “something mysterious” about him, “a calming quiet that left room for a lot of questions.” When Donna finds that the stink in his room comes from dead mice he feeds an enormous python he’s hidden in his closet, she barely protests, although it’s clear that her new roommate is bad news, especially after he balks at paying rent. Macon Fleischer is a smooth writer who keeps the nasty details about Joshua unfolding at a steady clip and effectively conveys the setting. Early on, Donna finds 20 feet of shed snakeskin near her door: “Topanga was known as ‘the Snake Pit,’ but for the rattlesnakes and seedy residents from the seventies—not twenty-foot-long pythons.” But it’s hard to care about a character who, throughout the book, acts so carelessly and for reasons too often explained, not dramatized. And Joshua is the snake hiding in the flowers, aiming to steal her house and perhaps harm her. As Donna rationalizes his actions, her plight fails to inspire the keen sympathy it should, given that from the start her predicaments have been of her own making.
A smoothly written but underdramatized novel about a toxic relationship between housemates in Southern California.Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-80405-435-2
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Joffe Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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