An audacious novel with a hero that braves both mythical creatures and a disability.
To save his family, a former New York state cop follows serial killers into a strange realm of gods and dragons in Vick’s (Devils, 2017, etc.) fantasy tale.
It’s been seven years since Hank Jensen was a state trooper. He’s been on disability for rheumatoid arthritis, which causes him near-constant pain; it seems to have started after a woman named Liz Tutor, a prime suspect in a series of killings, put a curse on him. Hank never managed to bring her to justice, nor was he able to arrest Chris Hatton, who all but admitted that he and Liz were the cannibalistic murderers known as the Bristol Butchers. When Hank’s wife, Jane, and 12-year-old son, Sig, don’t return from trick-or-treating on Halloween, he gets a phone call from Bobbie Timmens, his former neighbor, telling him to go to the cave that once housed the Butchers’ victims. There, he finds a colorful, oval mirror—a portal that takes Hank to a land in the midst of a blizzard. A man named Meuhlnir provides him with both refuge and information, and it turns out that there may be something to Liz’s and Chris’ strange claims of being gods. Hank teams up with powerful people called the Isir and, on the path to find his family, faces everything from elves to reanimated corpses. Vick’s Norse mythology–laden narrative is rife with figures that readers will recognize. Still, Hank’s condition makes him the most distinctive character; when he first heads out to rescue his family, he stocks up not only on ammunition, but also on pain meds. There’s a good deal of back story, including Hank’s initial investigation of Liz and Chris and how the Isir achieved power. The inevitable confrontations are enhanced by Vick’s energetic prose: “With a cacophony of savage, ear-splitting screams, the fire demons fell on the party of Isir.” The expansiveness of the story’s world(s), unfortunately, offsets the urgency of finding Jane and Sig. Nevertheless, the story is thoroughly resolved, and there’s a hint of how the series might continue.
An audacious novel with a hero that braves both mythical creatures and a disability.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 721
Publisher: Ratatoskr Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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