A charming, wistful story that evokes simpler times.
A tender debut novella that captures the doubts and imagination of a 12-year-old boy living in the Arizona Territory.
Darius Mallen wants so very much to be a well-behaved, responsible young boy. But once he gets into his father’s “Studebaker Junior” wagon, pulled by the amiable and swift-footed goat Dodie, he just can’t resist competing with Big Otis Sompkins. Both boys deliver goods from their fathers’ respective businesses. On his wagon—with his Jack Russell terrier, Jersey, riding shotgun and egging on Dodie—Darius shines despite his slight stature and withered right foot. Unfortunately, the races through town are upsetting the local folk, who must jump out of the way. When the sheriff has had enough, he threatens to haul Darius and Otis into jail. Darius’ uncle proposes a solution: they will hold a goat race on the first day of the town’s major annual festival. The winner will hold the title King of the Race, and the boys will promise to never again race through town. Optimistic and sure of his prowess as wagon master, Darius indulges in visions of cheering crowds as he crosses the finish line. The sheriff tells Darius he has a substantial bet on his victory and that he had better win. The boy’s exhilaration turns to terror. Within the space of two short chapters, Koss manages to evoke the innocence, insecurity, and bravado of those fleeting moments between childhood and adolescence. And although the prose is simple and unadorned, Koss successfully creates the excitement of the race itself in blow-by-blow detail: “Slamming into the wash, Darius felt his wagon grind to a stop as the mud dragged and swallowed the bottoms of his wheels. Dodie, bleating loudly in shock and alarm, struggled against the harness, lost her footing, and fell.” An efficient wordsmith, Koss manages to define the essential difference between the two boys through one incident: Darius pauses racing to stop Otis from whipping his bleating goat, Blueberry.
A charming, wistful story that evokes simpler times.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 50
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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