A chilling contemporary ghost tale that will make you think twice about braving the elements to buy a carton of milk the...
Something icy this way comes in Golden's latest ghostly thriller, in which the Massachusetts town of Coventry is never the same after a massive snowstorm leaves behind spectral presences.
The storm upends the lives of a Stephen King–like cross section of residents. Hardest hit is Afghanistan-widowed school teacher Allie Schapiro, whose 10-year-old son, Isaac, is bizarrely yanked through his bedroom window to his death and whose love interest, Niko, runs off for help and never comes back. Isaac's older brother, Jake, who had dismissed Isaac's fears over seeing ice monsters in their backyard, and Niko's daughter, Miri, were on the verge of their own teenage romance. But following the tragedies, she moves to Seattle—only to be drawn back 12 years later when she receives an unsettling phone call from her father. At least she thinks it's him. With another giant snowstorm gathering force, strange behavior is spreading in Coventry, where a little girl begins acting and sounding eerily like her late grandmother, and, at the same time that a young boy goes missing, a frighteningly altered Isaac appears before Jake begging for his company. "They're coming," warns one character. Who is coming, and why, is deftly handled by Golden, who keeps things on edge from start to finish. As in The Birds, the supernatural attackers signify psychic unrest as much as physical threat. The book falls short of King-ian frights largely because Golden errs on the side of restraint in his employment of the evil spirits. But the book—which leaves itself open to a sequel—still has its full share of tingling moments.
A chilling contemporary ghost tale that will make you think twice about braving the elements to buy a carton of milk the next time it snows.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01531-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
SEEN & HEARD
Impressively assured and insightful.
First-novelist Ellis makes an auspicious debut with this imaginatively rendered psychological suspense thriller set in an upstate New York town inhabited entirely by mediums and spiritualists.
Naomi Ash has a secret she's kept for ten years. She knows where a body is buried—not because she's a medium and converses with dead spirits, but because it’s the corpse of her boyfriend, and she's the one who buried it. Now 31, Naomi came to Train Line, New York, where spiritualists live and ply their trade, as a child, when her mother (herself a medium) moved there from New Orleans. Following in her mother's footsteps, Naomi `sees` dead people for a living, although it’s such a meager one that she must also take odd jobs, including baby-sitting and working in a library, to make ends meet. She’s going nowhere and remains haunted by the ten-year-old murder that resulted in her planting a visiting grad student in a secret location. But now that her boyfriend’s body has been found, Naomi knows it's only a matter of time before he's identified and she falls under suspicion. In impeccable prose, Ellis weaves a fascinating tale of guilt and redemption. She also plumbs the depths of spiritualism: What is real and what isn't? Where does life begin, and where, if ever, does it end? “My empty heart was collapsing in on itself,” Naomi muses. “A lonely life is a crime without witnesses, it is a movie playing in a locked theater; can you ever be sure what happens in it? Can you be sure that it happens at all?” Similarly exquisite writing can be found throughout this well-crafted tale. Ellis encourages readers to see their own fears and longings in the eccentric inhabitants of a highly unusual town, reminding us that most differences are simply matters of appearance.
Impressively assured and insightful.Pub Date: July 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-670-89242-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
Clarke (Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles, 2005) paints an amusing and jaw-dropping (but only slightly exaggerated) picture of a...
The ghost of a Louisiana State frat boy, seeking revenge for his death; the salvation of one of the fraternity’s big dumb pledges; and a few of the good things in life not generally available to the dead.
The excesses of Greek life proved fatal for Gamma Chi pledge Conrad Sutton when the exceedingly handsome, coke-snorting, date-raping Ryan Hutchinson threw Conrad down the frat-house staircase, breaking the freshman’s neck. The unwitnessed murder was listed as just another boyish disaster in the notorious history of the hard-partying fraternity, and Ryan has continued to live the good LSU life unpunished, making life hell for a new pledge class and for his gorgeous girlfriend Maggie. Now Conrad’s ghost roams Baton Rouge plotting retribution. He is at first visible only to Miss Etta, the deeply religious frat-house cook, who explains to him that he isn’t supposed to be working on vengeance but on the salvation of poor, thick-witted, gargantuan, red-headed Tucker Graham, whom Ryan has singled out for particular attention in the new pledge class. Tucker is prepared to endure all that his prospective brothers can dish out, believing that as a Gamma Chi, he will at last be able to lose his virginity. But Conrad, who finds he can slip into Tucker’s skin whenever the pledge passes out (a not-infrequent event), uses the boy’s great strength to start smacking Ryan around. He gets a little help from his ex-girlfriend’s best friend and sorority sister Sarah Jane, who is on to Ryan’s evil ways and has her own plans for his downfall. Retribution will come in steps that include the unwitting application of depilatory to Ryan’s gorgeous locks, another grisly murder and a surprising liaison for the hard-used Tucker.
Clarke (Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles, 2005) paints an amusing and jaw-dropping (but only slightly exaggerated) picture of a life treasured by generations of beer guzzling food fighters.Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-7315-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
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