An often jaunty and thoroughly entertaining story of young love.
In this fantasy/romance, a teenager’s destiny may encompass falling for a witch and saving a hidden realm of dreams while safeguarding his own world.
Heading to Wisconsin for college, Brian Danahey’s solo road trip is sidetracked by car trouble, an apparently empty tank. Luckily, Rebecca Church shows up and offers her cabin as a temporary refuge. She’s the girl of his dreams; that is, she looks just like the figure being pursued by a hangman in Brian’s recurring nightmare. Turns out Rebecca’s been waiting for Brian, certain he’s the one prophesied to stop an imagination-eating void from swallowing all of the World of Mortal Dreams. Without nourishment provided by the waking world’s cousin, people’s spirits will shrivel and die. Strictly adhering to the Witches Code, Rebecca can only relay information to Brian via riddles, dreams, or illusions. Starting with a book of Rebecca’s poems, Brian slowly learns about the other realm and the prophecy. He finds unexpected allies along the way as well as adversaries, particularly Abigail, an imp who hates Rebecca. More important, he untangles Rebecca’s intricate past: she’s effectively a prisoner, and Brian may be more determined to rescue the girl he loves than the dual worlds. Fraser’s (Faulty Bones, 2016) Romeo-and-Juliet tale brims with preternatural turns and diverting romance. Thwarting the void entails a few tortuous decisions, such as Rebecca having a limited number of times to see Brian before disappearing forever. But the young couple’s evolving relationship is the engaging story’s focus and true essence. The two are generally apart, making their shared scenes all the more endearing, while Fraser opts for more lighthearted humor than sweet nothings. Readers, for one, are treated to a glimpse of possessive Rebecca telling Brian’s video store co-worker: “I see you’re still hanging around my Brian!” Traversing another realm likewise allows for enjoyable appearances by a historical figure or two and a tie to a relevant, centuries-old event in Salem.
An often jaunty and thoroughly entertaining story of young love.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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