An old-school horror tale that delightfully embraces its inspirations and genre conventions.
A cosmetic surgeon becomes obsessed with a reputed cell-regeneration machine and a mysterious, ageless woman in old photographs in this supernatural novel.
It’s 1974, and Nigel Leary’s terminal cancer means the California surgeon has little time left. But there’s hope, possibly, when Ida Inkettle walks into his office with her father Conrad’s book. It contains his research into “regeneration”; while Ida wants Nigel to use this knowledge to give her back her youth, he sees a potential cure for cancer. With help from his office assistant, Marian Nicks, and Ida’s caretaker, Oliver Cook, Nigel delves into Conrad’s experiments, which began in the late 19th century, with an enigmatic machine. Most of what they discover is grim: Conrad’s experiments on his wife, Eleanor, were akin to torture. But in images from Conrad’s lab, there’s an unknown woman from the 1890s with the same youthful appearance in 1946. Nigel and the others try to identify this woman, who ultimately manifests as an apparition via electrical items, like a television. This may even take precedence over Nigel’s finding a cancer cure, as he’s fixated on the ghostly woman. Answers surely lie in Conrad’s twisted “psychical research”—rife with sinister deeds, including murder. This novel is certainly Lovecraft-ian, particularly Nigel’s growing obsessions and the occasional signs of monstrous forms. Using familiar genre elements, Turner expertly weaves a gripping horror story. The ghostly manifestations are indelible and eerie as the trio gradually unravel the mystery of Conrad’s experiments. Largely unembellished prose allows set pieces to speak for themselves, from traditional moments (dark houses and creaking floors) to the latter half’s unexpected turns. In the same vein, the author’s artwork comprises simple black-and-white sketches of singular items—hauntingly significant to the chapter that each illustration accompanies.
An old-school horror tale that delightfully embraces its inspirations and genre conventions. (author bio)Pub Date: April 17, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-65-773611-3
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An impressive and surprising take on war-story tropes.
A doughboy makes a curious discovery at the front in this inventive metaphysical horror tale.
This novel by Kraus centers on Private Cyril Bagger, a U.S. soldier during World War I and the son of a bishop who died on the Lusitania; he’s taken his father’s Bible with him into the Army as a remembrance. He’s also a confidence man and shirker relegated to burial duty in the French countryside, which is fine with him: The work is grotesque (Kraus depicts wartime deaths in visceral detail) but keeps him from becoming a corpse himself. Alas, his commander has hand-picked him and four other “disreputable” soldiers for a suicide mission to rescue what sounds like an incessantly shrieking soldier. Cyril finds the source of the shrieking, which turns out to be—well, that’s tricky. Cyril sees her as a vaguely familiar woman, clothed in red and blue, bathed in bright light, and capable of magically rescuing him from the worst of German gunfire; members of his cohort see a mother, a former lover, and other women. So for the purposes of Kraus’ novel, the shrieker is a metaphor for the ways war stands in contrast to our deepest needs for care and safety. It’s a sweet sentiment, albeit one that Kraus coats in a lot of ugliness, particularly the seemingly endless human carnage. Kraus structures the novel as an extended run-on sentence (with paragraph breaks), giving the story a relentless and intense rhythm. As a veteran horror writer, he’s gifted at depictions of blood and guts and knows how to keep a story moving, but in its latter stages the novel is a philosophical one as well, concerned with humanity’s seemingly inborn need to wage war and what might counter it. The identity of the woman Cyril calls an angel is vague, but Kraus has a clear grasp on our worst impulses.
An impressive and surprising take on war-story tropes.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781668068458
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
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