by Kate Abbott ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2015
A gloomy, character-driven story with a potency that’s not easy to match.
A woman questions her sanity when she begins interacting with ghosts in Abbott’s debut thriller.
One night, 44-year-old wife and mother Phoebe Rivers is out for a late run when two strangers accost and rape her. She manages to stab one of her assailants before a third man, Petrel, rescues her. She later learns that Petrel may be the ghost of a man who died approximately 70 years ago. She’s reluctant to tell the cops or her husband, David, about the rape, for fear that they’ll think her insane; besides, she thinks she may have killed one of the rapists. She goes on to see more dead people, such as Sorel, a runaway slave from the Civil War era—but that fact is far less disturbing than what Phoebe learns about David. It turns out that he has another life, including a girlfriend named Annette. The adulterous couple may be up to something unspeakably sinister—something that may put Phoebe and her children in danger. Abbott pulls no punches in her somber tale, and she draws readers into some very bleak territory. A number of scary scenes may make readers cringe, as they involve young children. The violence, however, is never left unchecked; instead, Abbott merely highlights details of grisly sequences and lets readers’ imaginations carry the rest. Whether Phoebe is truly witnessing spirits or dreaming them is initially ambiguous, but the story makes it abundantly clear what’s happening before it’s over. In any case, the ghosts aren’t as riveting as the living characters. Annette, for instance, proves the vilest and most reprehensible character of all; the chapters focusing on her perspective reveal a back story that readers may find impossible to forget. The narrative’s timeline, however, is a little hard to follow, and the ages of Phoebe’s children are inconsistent. The kids’ long-suffering mother, though, is indefatigable. Indeed, Phoebe faces every tribulation head-on—an admirable trait in a protagonist.
A gloomy, character-driven story with a potency that’s not easy to match.Pub Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1612964881
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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