A tense and involving tale of a young woman seeking revenge and finding a family.
A young woman hunting her mother’s killer discovers revelations about her relatives.
As Danbury’s novel opens, teenager Rose LaFlamme is being dropped off at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere by the callous, brutal man who impregnated her (she eventually comes to dub him “the Pirate”) and is now handing her some money to travel to the nearest abortion clinic. She eventually arrives at the unwelcoming facility (“Planned Parenthood…the name Infanticide Incorporated must not have tested well with focus groups”), endures the procedure, and then shortly afterward gives birth to the aborted fetus’ undetected twin sister. Rose keeps the baby, steals the Pirate’s money, and hopes to stay hidden from him as she raises her daughter. This scenario only lasts a few years before he tracks her down and murders her—setting her daughter, Phoenix, on a lifelong mission to find the man who killed her mother and make him pay. Along the way, she encounters her grandfather Liam McGinn and his friend Curt Martinsen and begins developing complicated relationships with both. She changes her name to Phoebe in order to protect her from evil people who might be looking for her—particularly the Pirate, whose fate seems entwined with hers even as the years pass. She grows older, establishes a life of her own, marries, and has a baby, but that generational danger is always lurking in the shadows.
This tense, gritty background plot runs throughout the book and is obviously destined for a resolution at the tale’s climax. It therefore sits awkwardly alongside the bulk of the novel’s main story of young Phoebe traveling the American Southwest in the age of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; learning the ways of the new “World Wide Web”; having humorous misadventures with her pets; and getting to know Curt and her grandfather. These plot threads are rendered with warmth and excellent pacing. Phoebe’s character is remarkably fleshed out—she and Curt are the tale’s best-realized creations, although Danbury can sometimes allow the narrative to lapse into bathos (“I’m a little sensitive at the moment,” Phoebe says at one point, “and I’m feeling a tidal wave of emotions right now”). The increasingly and refreshingly complex personal story that develops between Phoebe and her own child and the newfound family in her life exists a bit uncomfortably next to the standard thriller element of a character as thoroughly evil as the Pirate (he kills his drug supplier; he accelerates his car to squash an armadillo; he has near-supernatural, Javert-like persistence). Fortunately, the jarring tone is not fatal to the tale since the author is a skillful writer with a sure-footed knack for keeping the narrative moving. A significant element of this is Danbury’s decision to delve in detail into the individual backstories of his characters, ranging from Phoebe’s grandfather to the Pirate himself. These extended flashback sequences provide a welcome shading to Phoebe’s own tale as it progresses, and they further highlight the author’s ability to craft moving, believable characters. Liam’s story, in particular, the tale of a good man hitting rock bottom and finding his way back to the world, works as an effective narrative counterpoint to the book’s main plot threads.
A tense and involving tale of a young woman seeking revenge and finding a family.Pub Date: July 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73334-402-9
Page Count: 346
Publisher: JEFE PRESS
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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
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