A trippy tale packed with high-tech inventions and old-school mystery that feels like a wildly captivating video game.
In Mathison’s novel, a man endeavors to secure his inheritance from a mysterious uncle while exploring the old man’s sprawling English estate and questioning the very nature of reality.
Kris Robinson embarks on an epic journey when, in an effort to explore his alternative selves, he consumes high-tech drugs that cause temporary amnesia. As the voices in his head (which call themselves the “Storytellers” and guide him on his psychedelic journey) say, “Imagine—a sip, a swallow, and voilà! A tabula rasa!” After this brief glimpse into the perhaps not-too-distant future, the book switches to a second-person perspective, and the rest of the novel takes on a distinct video-game aspect as readers navigate the strange proceedings from Kris’ vantage point. Kris receives a letter from a mysterious uncle, Arthur Hanover, asking him to come to his English estate to claim his inheritance, but readers will feel as though they’re the ones going through the motions: “Standing there is a courier asking you to sign for a packet. What in the world? The packet has come from ‘Allensby, Bixby, Crosby & Sons & Daughters, Barristers and Solicitors’ from a town in England you’ve never heard of.” From there, readers are launched into an intriguing mansion-set mystery as Kris travels to England and meets a cast of colorful characters (including a devious head butler and the housekeeper’s friendly grandson) while trying to uncover the mystery of his long lost “uncle”…and the meaning of existence itself. The “Storyteller” voices occasionally pop in to hint at solutions for both Kris and readers as the protagonist is repeatedly pulled out of one reality and into another. Mind-bending scenes (such as lavish dinner parties that devolve into intense competitions and an impromptu disco party) ultimately make the narrative feel like the literary version of a Black Mirror TV episode. The novel is based on a DVD adventure game that the author made in the late 1990s, which perhaps accounts for its immersive feel. Occasionally confusing, always entertaining, and undeniably fun, Mathison’s yarn is a truly unique reading experience.
A trippy tale packed with high-tech inventions and old-school mystery that feels like a wildly captivating video game.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9798886451238
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.
Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.
Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781538769997
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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