A complicated, engrossing love story that focuses on two gifted stonemasons.
An old hand falls for his young business partner in this fiction debut.
Theophilous “Theo” MacBain is a well-known stonemason. He’s pushing 60 and has a solid career reputation, though his status as a family man is less impressive. His business partner, Hanson “Hannie” Blair, a knockout, also happens to be a talented mason (she “picked up on the right way to do stone from the start,” Theo recalls). She’s a young, beautiful, and vigorous woman who unfortunately has a history of picking disastrous men. Despite a substantial age difference, Theo and Hannie find themselves sharing a mutual attraction that is only reinforced when he saves her life. He represents integrity, honesty, stability, and strength, while Hannie embodies a dream for him, a second chance at love and a family (“Hell, I could still give her kids,” Theo muses. “She’d want kids. I guessed”). The couple work their way toward a relationship, though their May-December age difference remains a constant undercurrent. Hannie’s past choices also continue to haunt them; she seems unable to fully break free from her self-destructive tendencies. Throughout their ups and downs, Theo relies on the support of Beth Hennessey, another independent woman who could have been more in other circumstances. Will Theo and Hannie ultimately find happiness? The novel is a true character study. McRaven (The Classic Hewn-Log House, 2014, etc.) builds a compelling narrative around an unlikely hero: an aging, reticent stonemason whose rough exterior hides a sharp intellect and reflective nature. Theo and Hannie’s relationship is satisfyingly nuanced, as the author probes the issues that hide beneath the surface tensions created by long days at work or jealousy. Theo’s steady friendship with Beth, which reappears throughout the tale, effectively counterbalances an otherwise complex love life. The evocative descriptions of days spent outdoors under wide-open Western skies, fly-fishing or riding horses, are reminiscent of the work of Norman Maclean or Jim Harrison. And McRaven’s extensive experience as a stonemason comes in handy as he describes laying “a double wall for free-standing work, usually with a taper, or rake, in at the top” or putting in a “through-stone, or tie-stone to keep the two halves together.” Thankfully, the observations on stonework stay limited enough to be intriguing rather than repetitive.
A complicated, engrossing love story that focuses on two gifted stonemasons.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944962-11-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Secant Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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