A grim, riveting paranormal crime story.
In Leverett’s thriller, supernaturally gifted people may be the only ones who can stop a fiendish biker gang behind the abduction of a child.
Californian Jack Scott’s dreams of skyrocketing into the clouds and plummeting back to Earth are unsettling. He learns he’s awakened a power—he’s a “bright flyer,” one whom the Earth Mother has blessed to “combat evil on the astral plane.” He also sees a girl in one of his dreams; she is Sara Barnes, whom a biker gang has kidnapped and locked in a cell. Sherry Campbell, following her separation from her husband, returns home to the West Coast. A fellow bright flyer, she soon finds herself in the dangerous company of the bikers. To save Sara, Sherry and Jack must confront the gang leader, Freak, who’s a dark flyer. They can possibly take him out by severing his cord (which is attached to his sleeping body during astral travel), but he could do the same to Sherry and Jack if they’re not careful. Leverett skillfully and organically introduces his characters and their backstories. The cast also includes FBI agent Jim Mason, who’s investigating the “rash of kidnappings”; Jack’s kindhearted nurse girlfriend, Anna; and one biker who seems less menacing than the others in his gang. The story is full of engaging melodrama and supernatural flourishes; characters deal with relatable troubles (a break in routine gives Jack indigestion) along with their miraculous gifts (bright flyers are capable of more than just astral projection). Pithy prose energizes the narrative, even when there’s not much action: “Jack regained consciousness like a drowning swimmer, fighting his way up through a dark, red haze to the surface.” The hectic final act delivers shocks and a somewhat open ending, as befits the start of a series.
A grim, riveting paranormal crime story.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798269279336
Page Count: 357
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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