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THE HOMESTEAD

Name: THE HOMESTEAD
Author: Douglass Hoover
ISBN: 978-0-9994074-7-9

by Douglass Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2017

A passionate, sometimes-brutal tale of violence begetting violence.

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Members of an isolated Alaskan community make a stand against those who seem intent on seizing their land in Hoover’s debut thriller.

Augustin Stark envisioned the Homestead, which he founded, as an escape from modern society—a free community with no internet or phone service and little contact with the larger world. When he spots an unmarked helicopter passing by, it puts him on edge. While trekking to the nearest town, Harkstaff, for supplies, he and fellow Homesteaders find a wrecked SUV and one survivor, Franklin Summerset. He’s a senior vice president at Lockstone Oil who makes an offer to buy the Homestead land, but Stark assures him that it’s not for sale. However, Lockstone’s CEO then uses his Washington, D.C., connections to make a claim of eminent domain, aiming to simply take the land. Stark, a habitually armed former Marine, responds with threats and, later, an explosion only to be arrested later by FBI agents accusing him of domestic terrorism. Stark’s pal Andrew Russo wants to flee, but other Homesteaders, who are predominantly ex-Marines, plan to free Stark from federal confinement. As the feds prepare to raid the Homestead, everyone braces themselves for a bloody conflict; meanwhile, Stark suspects that some of the agents may not actually be with the FBI. Hoover develops tension by shrouding characters in ambivalence: Stark has a secret that isn’t immediately revealed; authorities are untrustworthy; and there’s betrayal lurking at the Homestead that’s unrelated to the main plot. Accordingly, readers may have trouble sympathizing with anyone, but the author wisely doesn’t champion either side. As the mystery plays out, answers gradually come to light, including who may be behind the attack against the Homestead. The action scenes, meanwhile, are more unsettling than exciting: “The sporadic popping of handguns was offset by the methodic boom of a not-too-distant high-powered rifle.” It’s a grim experience, overall, but it’s one that refuses to be disregarded or easily forgotten, particularly given its jaw-dropping ending.

A passionate, sometimes-brutal tale of violence begetting violence.

Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-9994074-7-9

Page Count: 300

Publisher: BlackPit Publishing Group

Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2017

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.