A hallucinatory and hair-raising gothic horror story that suffers from a disjointed style.
In 1840, an Englishwoman fights for her sanity—and her life—when she marries into an exceedingly rich and mysterious family.
Orabella Mumthrope is the 26-year-old orphaned daughter of a white father and a Black mother; she’s living with her uncle, who grudgingly puts up with the arrangement, when Elias Blakersby shows up one day asking for her hand in marriage. It’s clear from the moment Orabella meets him that not everything is as it seems. Elias’ appearance is unkempt and his manner undeniably strange, but Orabella is thoroughly seduced by him and agrees to his proposal, leaving behind her family and friends for a new life at the Blakersby family estate. When Orabella and Elias arrive at Korringhill Manor, she discovers a home that has—in typical gothic fashion—fallen into decay. Elias’ family is less than welcoming to his new bride. While some of them are curt and distant, others act far too familiar with Orabella, treating her like a rare creature meant to be on display. Stranger still are the nightmarish bacchanalian dinner parties during which they seem to take on animalistic qualities. Despite Orabella’s initial misgivings, Elias convinces her they will have a long and happy life together as long as she does what she’s told and stays in her room at night. But the longer Orabella spends locked behind the doors at Korringhill, the harder it becomes to tell reality from dreams. While this novel has many of the trappings of a classic gothic, its supernatural undertones make it stand out. At times it feels like a fever dream, and will undoubtedly leave readers confused as they try to parse out what exactly is happening to Orabella within the dimly lit halls of Korringhill; the narrative becomes increasingly unclear as the story progresses.
A hallucinatory and hair-raising gothic horror story that suffers from a disjointed style.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780063228092
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
