A hard-hitting, if unevenly executed, horror tale.
Eerie supernatural events take place in a small-town general store in Thorne’s novel.
The story mostly takes place on and around March 21, 1955, in the town of Hollow River during a torrential thunderstorm. Eight people seek shelter in a store called Beard’s General, and in this conservative, religious town, everyone’s beset by secrets, guilt, and shame. There’s Peter Mayberry, a White church musician grappling with his sexuality and in love with Sam Brooks, a younger Black man. He’s haunted by memories of his devoutly religious mother’s disapproval and extreme physical abuse. Eli Wynn is an adolescent who’s berated for indulging his sexuality, and Jerry Beard faces the same stigma and shame from his own mother, Kathy, as she tries to keep things going at the general store. Mark MacDonald is the local pastor who commits the sin of thievery, stealing from Kathy and the church fund to make ends meet. Donna Gilliam, meanwhile, kills her husband in their home to keep her baby, Theo, safe, and stops at the store on her way to the hospital.Finally, there’s Marilyn, a beautiful, mysterious woman who washes up at the store. Many of the characters grapple with their sins and shame, but one is a gruesome predator, feeding upon their guilt to stay alive. The group must band together or get washed away—both literally and figuratively. Thorne’s book relies on Christian themes of salvation, absolution, and apocalypse to further the plot, with suspense revolving around whether people can overcome their personal demons to face a greater one together. The story ends on a note of reconciliation and peace as well as an afterword reflecting on real-life disasters that inspired the book’s events, such as flooding in Mississippi. His messages regarding judgement, shame, and guilt come through strongly and hit with great force. The prose can be tedious at times, though, with gratuitous, graphic descriptions of sexual violence and an excess of sexual metaphors. Still, Thorne fleshes out each character’s backstory in measured detail, making them problematic and relatable, by turns.
A hard-hitting, if unevenly executed, horror tale.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-938271-53-3
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Lost Hollow Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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