by Jess Porto ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 28, 2022
A basic damsel in distress story turned upside-down.
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A college student in the North Carolina foothills finds herself a pawn in a deadly game in Porto’s thriller.
Morgan Thomas and her roommate and best friend, Sheridan Gallagher, make their way to a friend’s Halloween party. Morgan’s still wearing her woodland fairy costume hours later when she wakes up in the middle of the night in a dark wooded area as some great creature bashes its way through the trees above her. She manages to make it home, but in the morning finds herself unable to speak about her experience to Sheridan (“Before I could begin to describe what had happened, my throat suddenly tightened and felt drier than chalk dust, and I had to take a sip of my coffee to moisten it. My head also started pounding rhythmically inside my skull”), who thinks she may have had too much to drink. Morgan does remember an odd encounter with a tall man dressed like a ninja, who simply put his hand on her shoulder and looked at her without speaking. After the strange incident, she finds herself revisiting the forest, sometimes in her dreams and sometimes in real life. What strange forces are affecting her? And why can’t she tell her friends what’s going on, even as she finds herself at the scene of a murder? The plot rolls out slowly and impressively; just as Morgan begins to get a feeling about what is happening to her, she’s so caught up in the action that there’s not much she can do. Morgan spends her most adventurous moments dreaming or sleepwalking; in her waking hours, she has even less control over her life. So what is the reader to make of Morgan? With the introduction of a young detective, Grayson Blair, who Morgan first notices as she’s bartending a gala event hosted by Sheridan’s wealthy family, it begins to seem like she has found an ally and secured a fighting chance. But expectations continue to be subverted up to the story’s sequel-setting climax, which is tinged with elements of romance, fantasy and even SF.
A basic damsel in distress story turned upside-down.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2022
ISBN: 9798218114251
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by Janet Evanovich ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2024
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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