A smart supernatural tale that delves deeply into its main characters’ lives.
In Groover’s dramatic paranormal thriller, multiple members of a family grapple with strange and startling visions.
In modern-day Center Point, Texas, Jessica Atwood, a 29-year-old Black woman, lives on a failing farm with her brother and stepfather. She has haunting, dreamlike premonitions that make life even more difficult for her. Like those of her mother and grandmother, Jess’ visions are “hit-or-miss” in their ability to foretell future events. If they’re incorrect, the townsfolk could believe that Jess is mentally ill; if they’re true, then disastrous events may well come to pass. The spirited woman feels as if she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, but she vows to help as many people as she can with her burdensome gift. This is easier said than done, however—especially after Jess begins to experience terrible, urgent premonitions of young women being kidnapped in their town. As she endeavors to find peace and the strength to be a hero, Groover introduces an account of Anna Mae Cole, Jess’ grandmother, growing up in the mid-1960s with the same unique, frustrating powers. The author expertly weaves together the women’s dire struggles to do what’s right and also their trials and tribulations as they attempt to come into their own in the 1960s and in the present day. As Jess strives to keep her farm afloat while dealing with annoying neighbors and mysterious men interested in buying her property, Anna Mae navigates a broken family and finding and losing love. Strong themes of generational trauma, family bonds, and finding one’s truth coexist in a well-paced plot, and as readers connect with Jess’ or Anna Mae’s narratives, they’ll find themselves engaged by an intriguing mystery.
A smart supernatural tale that delves deeply into its main characters’ lives.Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Deep Pacific Press
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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