Unapologetically graphic, deeply disturbing, and all too believable.
Hatch’s debut medical thriller chronicles a woman’s nightmarish ordeal after inexplicably giving birth to her son nearly four months early.
After trying to conceive for years, Sophie and Adam Young’s last attempt at IVF proves successful. But after abdominal pain during her lunch break forces her to check into a midtown Manhattan hospital as a precaution, she finds herself drugged and in labor 14 weeks ahead of schedule—she soon gives birth to a baby boy who barely weighs two pounds. Essentially living in the neonatal intensive care unit with her son as he desperately clings to life, Sophie begins seeing the always crowded and chaotic NICU, its doctors, and the healthcare industry in general in a new—and decidedly darker—light. One doctor in particular—Mitch Wagner, the obstetrician who delivered her baby—is connected to an alarming number of expectant mothers who have given birth prematurely. Sophie and her husband begin investigating, only to become entangled in a grand-scale conspiracy that puts all of their lives, including that of their vulnerable son, in danger. The author’s intimate familiarity with the daily trials and tribulations of working in the medical field (Hatch is a longtime pediatric nurse practitioner) gives this narrative its punch. Sophie witnesses an emergency C-section in which the baby is saved but the mother dies: “Sophie couldn’t pull her eyes away from the drama. [The woman’s] bra and underpants had been cut off and thrown on the floor. IV bags and tubing, medication vials, countless surgical pads, and bloody sheets and towels were strewn everywhere.” The emotional intensity throughout is off the charts (“…don’t mess with a mother and her baby”), and the commentary razor-sharp (“People complain about how expensive health care is. This is why. Big Pharma is buying our business, and it’s all wrong”). Hatch’s yarn is very much comparable to Robin Cook’s breakthrough novel Coma (1977); fans of medical thrillers will not soon forget this story.
Unapologetically graphic, deeply disturbing, and all too believable.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9781684633142
Page Count: 256
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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