Is there a ghost of a chance that Robards can conjure up a more believable—and less repulsive—love interest for Charlie in...
Robards (Sleepwalker, 2011, etc.) combines a few of her favorite themes in the first of a series featuring a psychiatrist with paranormal abilities who researches serial killers.
During her senior year in high school, Charlie Stone survived a vicious attack by a serial killer who slaughtered her friend Holly Palmer’s family and then abducted Holly. Her classmate’s body was found buried beneath the boardwalk less than a week later near the coastal North Carolina town where the family had lived. Dubbed the Boardwalk Killer, the murderer attacked several families with teenage daughters before the killings stopped, and the girls’ bodies were always found within a week following their abduction. Fast-forward 15 years, and Charlie is now a psychiatrist researching serial killers at a Virginia prison when FBI special agent Tony Bartoli and his colleague come calling. It appears either the Boardwalk Killer has resurfaced or a copycat murderer is on the loose. Since Charlie is an expert on aberrant behavior and has seen the Boardwalk Killer, the FBI wants her help. They must act quickly, though, if they want to save the latest girl to be abducted. The team heads to Kill Devil Hills, the site of the most recent crime, and Charlie quickly discovers that she’s brought along some extra baggage. The ghost of one of her subjects at the prison, a convicted serial killer named Michael Garland, has “attached” himself to her. (He claims he’s innocent, but DNA proves otherwise.) It appears that in addition to being a brilliant, beautiful, serial-killer magnet, Charlie also can see and communicate with the spirits of some victims of violent deaths. And hot-looking Garland just happens to fit the bill—he died of a stab wound in Charlie’s arms right before she left the prison. As the search for the Boardwalk Killer intensifies and Charlie wrestles with her attraction to the hunky dead serial killer, she has steamy erotic dreams about Garland that may or may not have actually occurred.
Is there a ghost of a chance that Robards can conjure up a more believable—and less repulsive—love interest for Charlie in her next installment than the ghost of a convicted serial killer? Sadly, probably not.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-345-53540-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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