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BORDERLAND RANCH

Name: BORDERLAND RANCH
Author: James E. Merrima

DEATH AND SALVATION IN THE DESERT

by James E. Merrima ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A motley assortment of individuals truly ignites the plot in this whodunit.

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Vacationers at an Arizona dude ranch become rattled by unsavory guests, including one who turns up dead, in this mystery.

Fay Merrill has an array of visitors at her five-star Borderland Ranch, from hedge fund manager Alexander J. Randolph III to fashion model Katlin Carmichael. But one guest has no interest in any of the ranch activities. As assistant director of Homeland Security, Bobby Reynolds is supervising an operation to intercept an al-Qaida bomb maker. There could be a connection to Syrian brothers Ahmed Al Diri and Toad (a nickname courtesy of wrangler Brooke Bennett), two other ranch guests who have a secret “mission.” The brothers are certainly peculiar (at the ranch to photograph horses, they tend to aim their cameras at Brooke instead), but surprisingly, Bobby stirs up the most trouble. Several people recognize him from previous encounters over the years that haven’t left them with fond memories of the assistant director. When Fay stumbles on a corpse in one of the cabins, it’s unquestionably murder, and soon FBI agents are knocking on the door. With all the bad blood at the ranch, there’s no shortage of suspects, particularly once a few people suddenly vanish. Though much of Merriman’s (Missing in Bocas, 2016, etc.) tale plays like a soap opera, a solid mystery is prevalent throughout. Many characters, for example, have intriguing and thorny backstories: Divorced Fay is estranged from her daughter, while Katlin, though only 25, is evidently not “edgy” enough for modeling gigs. The author deftly draws in readers further with curious plot turns not immediately clarified, such as why guest Reggie Van den Berg nearly assaults Bobby. But some elements of the characters are repetitious: Run-ins involving Bobby and alcohol are both a current and past problem. Nevertheless, the story’s consistent momentum is boosted by amusing snippets: A distressed Fay wonders if vodka will provide “magical insight.” Perhaps best of all, the book’s strongest, most remarkable characters are chiefly female.

A motley assortment of individuals truly ignites the plot in this whodunit.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 184

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

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Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.