A measured, enjoyable dream tale that offers more questions than answers.
In this psychological thriller sequel, a stonemason struggles to distinguish reality from his increasingly complex world of dreams.
There’s good news for Michael Colt and his live-in girlfriend, Sue Kick. The couple’s first child will soon join their quiet life in Wisconsin. But Michael’s dreams lately have been bizarre and often baffling. Sometimes he dreams of apparently forgotten memories, such as his journey from Austria to the United States as an infant—with his long-dead parents he’s never remembered. He also dreams of things that either haven’t actually happened or belong in someone else’s memory bank; in one instance, he’s seriously injured jumping a wall only to wake up unscathed. And he’s not always waking up in bed, as he occasionally enters into a “trance,” even with Sue right next to him. All of this understandably confuses Michael as well as Sue, who has vivid dreams of her own. The story culminates with Michael in a dream world that he’s apparently created, with a series of doors that will hopefully lead him to illumination. While Siwicki infuses this leisurely paced narrative with ambiguity, the myriad dream scenes are generally discernible. Michael, for example, pops up in unexpected places, like “some sort of old government building.” The dream memories are also intriguing. Sue’s similar dream of herself as a newborn centers on her stepfather finding a tiny baby girl under a table at a bar. This novel primarily moves from dreams to Michael and Sue’s family moments (for example, hanging wallpaper) along with the author’s intermittent asides on such topics as religion, science, and mind travel. The final act spins off into new territory and introduces fresh elements, including the enigmatic “Rim Stone” and the titular Tribe. But readers shouldn’t expect much clarification, which Siwicki is evidently saving for the next installment.
A measured, enjoyable dream tale that offers more questions than answers.Pub Date: April 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9792622-5-8
Page Count: 279
Publisher: SLABYPRESS
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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