Eerie, entertaining tales whose recurring themes and characters make them stronger.
Vampires, otherworldly creatures, and human killers populate Lee’s debut collection of horror and suspense stories.
In the opening story, “Devil Beneath,” Marion hears scratching sounds and thuds from the crawl space under her house, as if something were trying to make its way aboveground. This is the essence of Lee’s book, brimming with stories that are refreshingly subtle while often hinting at the supernatural. The titular beast in “Closet Monster,” for example, torments 7-year-old Jeremy with glimpses of its talons and eyes in the blackness of night. Similarly, David becomes a captive while on an Alaskan trip in “Northern Lights,” a straightforward story that’s chilling even before its preternatural twist at the end. Nevertheless, humans prove just as creepy, as in “Snowball’s Chance,” in which Samuel Piejak and police officers search for his daughter, Coleen, who readers know has already been taken by someone unhinged. Disturbed individuals also highlight “The Tale” and “The Field,” stories that, despite their misleadingly humdrum titles, are delightfully ambiguous (i.e., there might be a supernatural element to explain what’s been taking place). In the book’s best story, “King of the Road,” hateful white-collar worker Jerry McIntyre slowly develops road rage on his commute to and from the office. But unlike other drivers, Jerry, giving in to his interstate fury, somehow finds a way to clear the road of unsafe motorists who’d dare occupy his lane. It’s undoubtedly satire but manages to be simultaneously wry and bizarre, if not outright terrifying. Some stories in Lee’s book are connected by characters who crop up more than once, which can enhance the narrative. It’s particularly unsettling, for instance, when one man, who doesn’t survive his initial appearance, is alive in the very next story. The strongest link involves the final tale, which follows Lester, Marion’s missing husband from the first story—alternate perspectives that serve as fascinating bookends.
Eerie, entertaining tales whose recurring themes and characters make them stronger.Pub Date: July 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9966058-0-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: 2nd Sight LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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