A ghoulish gem for those continuing—or new to—this series.
In this horror sequel, a Vermont town prepares to host a Goth festival and hopefully maintain a centuries-old secret.
It’s 1987, and 19-year-old Chris Chandler has been released from the South Portland Juvenile Detention Center in Maine. After the gruesome events in Bemishstock, ending with the death of Mallory Dahlman and others, he’s continuing as a Mortsafeman—one who defends “the departed.” A man named Bernard Monsegur has asked him to house-sit his Marymount estate in Lewis, Vermont. Chris does so readily, because the vicious ghost of Mallory has taken revenge on a fresh victim in Bemishstock and he’d like to avoid the questions of journalist Jackie Cormier. Though Lewis is a dying town, Mayor Gerald Paget sees it as a potential tourist destination that utilizes, among other attractions, the Monsegur family cemetery. Wealthy librarian Rose DuCalice, Bernard's sister, finds the enterprise grotesque and hopes to stop it. On the mayor’s side is Gilbert Burgoyne, who’s inherited the decrepit Bijou Burgoyne theater from his father and is planning to transform it into a playhouse featuring violent “Grand Guignol” performances. Gilbert also happens to finance his art by stealing and selling skeletons. When Chris gets caught among these powerful factions in Lewis, he’ll do anything to soothe Mallory’s ghost and reunite with the enchanting Gillian Willard. This second installment of Blake’s (Dead Scared, 2017) series is quite the gift, complete with a black bow, to horror fans. He juggles the Gothic New England ambiance, the parade of sleazy characters, and the occasional supernatural mauling with panache. Gilbert is misogyny incarnate, calling his girlfriend, Doloroso Morgana, Dolli, “the best sex doll in the world,” while Paget treats his daughter, Geraldine, like a nonentity. Mallory’s manifestations are uniquely chilling, as her “blue glow” becomes a “crackling and fizzing,” akin to a blown fuse. The author will also charm those who love well-researched history, working into the bedrock of his plot the Gnostic sect of European Cathars from the Middle Ages. In addition, strutting, memorable characters make this chiller unmissable.
A ghoulish gem for those continuing—or new to—this series.Pub Date: June 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77392-009-2
Page Count: 290
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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