Exuberantly irreverent; demonic beings and witches running amok have rarely been so funny.
A small Texas town is thrown into turmoil when an upcoming Halloween party comes complete with infernal beasts and ceremonial sacrifice in this supernatural thriller.
A seemingly abandoned deputy sheriff’s car—and no deputy—is merely the start of strange happenings in Welles, Texas. Police Chief Frank Butler notes tracks leading from the car to Coventry House, home to elderly Harriet, Emma, and May. Of course, May’s not there when Butler questions the ladies, a young, sultry Megan in her stead. Rumor has it that the old women are witches, but the deputy’s disappearance could be due to his part in a federal investigation or the not-so-secret pot field on Coventry House property. Nevertheless, Megan telling Butler that “people are coming” is especially foreboding in light of the women’s forthcoming party—what they call Samhain. Sure enough, someone summons a demon, Leonard, who crawls out from below, followed by scores of Kobolos, tiny, red hat–donning creatures that look not unlike garden gnomes. Soon the chief’s dealing with a person’s head stuffed into a mailbox and rednecks battling gnomes in an all-out war and, eventually, a clash inside the local Wal-Mart. Samhain night reveals Borderland, a gate between realities where sacrifices take place. That, plus an inevitable confrontation between Leonard and the witches, is bound to result in plenty of death. The novel, despite an unmistakably cheeky approach, is decidedly adult. There’s blood, viscera, and severed heads, while Wal-Mart, as expected, stocks weapons like shotguns and saw blades. Shawn (Pantheon, 2014, etc.) delivers this in a frenzied style filled with action and zany characters while taking jabs at teen paranormal romance novels: 17-year-old Bitsy Johnson mistakes initially unseen Kobolos for abnormally speedy vampire Edward. The story’s hampered by occasionally vague descriptions (twins with a “Japanese anime schoolgirl Yakuza fashion sense”) and somewhat obscure references (someone resembling “the dead girl from the Asian horror movie, The Eye”). The final act, however, is a bevy of treats, from surprises, including the identity of acolytes who summoned Leonard, to the introduction of black magic’s counterpart in the form of Celestial, or white, magic.
Exuberantly irreverent; demonic beings and witches running amok have rarely been so funny.Pub Date: April 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5076-1806-6
Page Count: 354
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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