An intriguing, original tale for readers looking for something a bit out of the ordinary.
A psychological thriller in which a traveler receives the memories of every other person on his flight—and is unable to control who takes the lead in his mind.
When SF writer Brian Watson takes Flight 2164 from Philadelphia to Chicago, he doesn’t expect it to be eventful. But as all the passengers make their way to the baggage carousel, confusion sweeps through the crowd; suddenly, no one knows who they are or where they are. Everyone except Brian, that is, who now has the memories of all 110 passengers and members of the flight crew. However, he can’t control when these recollections will pop to the forefront of his brain—sometimes he wakes up unsure of his own name, what his interests are, or even what he was doing just a few moments before. Brian just wants to get rid of these excess memories and resume his normal, happy relationship with Brenda, to whom he’s engaged to be married. Doctors don’t know what to make of what’s happening to him, although one nurse, Marci, shows an unusual interest in him; she’s after very specific memories from Brian and even tries to overwhelm his senses with a makeout session that feels oddly familiar to him. Soon, Brian recalls talking to Marci about being able to transmit memories from one person to another—but whose memory is he experiencing? Debut author Austin delivers a psychological thriller novel with just enough science fiction mixed in to interest fans of either genre. The story can feel jarring and confusing at times, as Brian fades in and out of other people’s recollections and lives and the text occasionally falls into a stream-of-consciousness style. The tale is told from Brian’s point of view but also from the perspective of whomever’s in the lead in his head at a given time. However, the author makes sure that his protagonist floats in and out of memories seamlessly, giving the overall narrative a steady flow that makes for an easy read.
An intriguing, original tale for readers looking for something a bit out of the ordinary.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949398-49-6
Page Count: 406
Publisher: Rhetoric Askew, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2021
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
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
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