Sharply drawn characters deliver a mostly jovial ghost story.
In this supernatural mystery, a woman’s dream house seems perfect for a bed-and-breakfast—but it comes with a curse and a few ghosts.
Rachel Morgan is ready for a permanent home. She’s been married to Ryan for less than a year, and since then, they’ve lived in four different cities. She finds an old, six-bedroom house in small Harwich Port, Massachusetts, where they can reside and run a B&B. The real-estate listing mentions rumors about the house being cursed and haunted, and Rachel thinks that such a reputation will certainly attract curious guests. She comes to realize, though, that the rumors may be true. There’s unexplainable, loud banging at night, for example, although only Ryan seems to hear it. The more pressing issue is Ryan’s secretiveness, as Rachel knows next to nothing about his job. This puts a strain on their marriage, so she runs the B&B without him. She befriends some intriguing Harwich locals, hires college-student Nikki as her assistant, and, soon, actually meets the house’s several ghostly residents. Thankfully, most of the spirits are amiable, and surprisingly protective. But one ghost, in particular, isn’t very friendly and may be responsible for the aforementioned curse, which may have caused the deaths of past residents. Rachel’s only hope is to convince this phantom to remove the curse once and for all. Bevans’ (Secrets on Sycamore Street, 2016, etc.) novel is an often lighthearted tale with plenty of melodrama and even some unexpected romance. The ghosts aren’t generally scary, but they do add intrigue to the story—particularly when they help Rachel in unusual ways. The unfriendly ghost, meanwhile, becomes a threat to someone that Rachel cares about. The book really hits its stride in its more realistic moments, as when Nikki encounters a delightfully mysterious guest at the B&B, discovers an unplanned pregnancy, and anticipates an impending storm that promises to be fierce. Several characters have their own subplots, but some storylines have no resolution, such as an alleged rape and the ghosts’ “mission.” Interestingly, however, Rachel acknowledges the lack of resolution regarding one issue, which ultimately leads to a mild but effective open ending.
Sharply drawn characters deliver a mostly jovial ghost story.Pub Date: March 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-72830-614-8
Page Count: 290
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2019
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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