In this debut novel, a troubled woman of 58 battles her many demons by seeking answers to her family’s disintegration and by learning to enjoy the natural world.
As Nia Meyer begins her story, she is fishing alone on the Salt River along Florida’s Gulf Coast. She details the process with an evident understanding of the natural world acquired through her late mother’s Native American heritage and her long absent father’s knowledge of the region and myriad skills. Nia’s boat becomes stuck in mud overnight as a storm rages. She withstands the ordeal, but her fear and isolation prompt long reveries, which are braided through her current situation and explain her unhappiness: “It was a long time ago, when my heart was so broken I could not breathe.” The sudden loss of her husband, a 40-year-old oncologist, sent her reluctantly into therapy decades ago with psychologist Paul Horton. He attempts to relieve her of the burden of her “memory stones”: all of her recollections, painful as well as happy. She stingily offers him small pebbles from her past. She grew up in Florida. When her mother died after becoming involved in a cultish church, their father abandoned Nia and her siblings. The four children were “adopted” by the church’s sinister leaders and unspecified abuse ensued. Nia escaped, met the successful but problematic Joel Meyer, and moved with him to Virginia, where they eventually married. Her psychotherapy enabled her to return to Florida, reconnect with family members and memories, and begin a new social life. The meandering plot touches on Nia’s childhood, her current life, her therapist’s family issues, Native American beliefs, along with much fishing lore, but most issues warrant additional coverage. The language and actions of doctors are depicted unrealistically: Horton describes Meyer’s death to his therapist: “ ‘Brain aneurysm,’ he replied. ‘It blew with such force it turned his brain into hamburger. At least, that’s what the surgeon told my patient.’ ” He later violates ethical strictures by contacting Nia’s sister on his own. The author does reveal some profound insights about abuse and dysfunction in families and how people heal.
A cleareyed look at overcoming family trauma, but several subplots beg further exploration.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Now that Coben’s added politics to his heady brew, expect sex and religion to join the mix.
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Coben’s latest darkest-suburbs thriller sets a decidedly offbeat detective on the trail of a crime with overtones unmistakably redolent of once and future presidential elections.
Wilde is called Wilde because nobody’s known his real name from the moment a pair of hikers found him foraging for himself in Ramapo Mountain State Forest 24 years ago. Now over 40, he’s had experience as both a lost boy and a private investigator. That makes him an obvious person to help when his godson, Sweet Water High School student Matthew Crimstein, expresses concern to his grandmother, attorney Hester Crimstein, that his bullied classmate Naomi Pine has gone missing. Matthew doesn’t really want anyone to help. He doesn’t even want anyone to notice his agitation. But Hester, taking the time from her criminal defense of financial consultant Simon Greene (Run Away, 2019) to worm the details out of him, asks Wilde to lend a hand, and sure enough, Wilde, unearthing an unsavory backstory that links Naomi to bullying classmate Crash Maynard, whose TV producer father, Dash Maynard, is close friends with reality TV star–turned–presidential hopeful Rusty Eggers, finds Naomi hale and hearty. Everything’s hunky-dory for one week, and then she disappears again. And this time, so does Crash after a brief visit to Matthew in which he tearfully confesses his guilt about the bad stuff he did to Naomi. This second disappearance veers into more obviously criminal territory with the arrival of a ransom note that demands, not money, but the allegedly incriminating videotapes of Rusty Eggers that Dash and Delia Maynard have had squirreled away for 30 years. The tapes link Rusty to a forgotten and forgettable homicide and add a paranoid new ripped-from-the-headlines dimension to the author’s formidable range. Readers who can tune out all the subplots will find the kidnappers easy to spot, but Coben finds room for three climactic surprises, one of them a honey.
Now that Coben’s added politics to his heady brew, expect sex and religion to join the mix.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4814-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER
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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. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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