by Darcy Scott ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
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A botanist retreats to a remote island to escape a complicated sex life, only to find himself tangled in a string of suspicious deaths.
When he last spent time on Matinicus, an island off the coast of Maine so isolated its inhabitants refer to the mainland as "America," Gil Hodges (named after the baseball player) developed an intense crush on Rachel Leland, an artist who lives in the old Burgess place, the island's oldest house. Five years later, under the pretense of completing a study of the island's rich plant life, he's staying at Rachel's house again, even though she's away. Of course, the botanical study is only part of the picture. Gil, a chronic libertine, is on the run from an ugly relationship and trying his best to put his old ways behind him. Unfortunately, he arrives on Matinicus during turbulent times, landing smack in the middle of an old dispute between local lobstermen and a former inhabitant of the island suspected of poaching. Without a resident police force, the citizens of Matinicus have to mete out justice on their own, so a string of seemingly random and accidental deaths starts the residents asking questions. Meanwhile, Gil must figure out how to deal with a local teen in the midst of a crisis, a sexy widow bent on making him revert to his former ways and a restless ghost who seems to be trying to tell him something. Scott's prose crackles with energy, and her sense of place is superb. The characters, even the minor ones, are well wrought, as is her detailed evocation of the book's unique setting. Sections set in modern times are interspersed with entries from the diary of an early 19th-century inhabitant of the Burgess house, and both plot lines are well executed and intertwine perfectly. Scott brings the action to a head, then ends with a brilliant twist sure to leave readers' jaws hanging. The kind of book readers will tear through, only to find themselves hungry for more.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Darcy Scott
by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by Max Brooks
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2004
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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