An inventive, thoughtfully constructed, chilling fantasy.
A former cop becomes haunted by more than just her past in this dark fantasy series opener.
Liz Raleigh is staying alone in a cabin in the middle of the New Hampshire woods, 30 miles from the nearest town, so when she hears footsteps on the porch late one winter night, she can’t help but go into cop mode. She’s not on the force anymore—she left her job at a coastal Maine police department after her actions unintentionally led to the death of her partner, Brody Aritza. Then her relationship with her photographer fiance fell apart, and now she’s hiding out in this remote cabin, trying to clear her head. But that’s easier said than done. Local New Hampshire forest ranger Hank Feld is sniffing around for a missing person—a man who happens to look a lot like Liz’s dead father—and she has been imagining that she sees and hears Brody everywhere. Or at least she thinks she’s imagining him. Then things start to escalate. Liz and Hank get in a car accident when a shadowy figure steps into the road. She staggers to the nearby ranger station, where she finds broken furniture and a lot of blood. The people in the nearby town erupt in panic. It turns out that the ghosts of the dead have come back to walk the Earth—and they’ve brought some very bad things with them. Silva’s prose writhes with angst and urgency, as here where Liz witnesses the chaos in town: “Cardend was a throbbing heart of anarchy. Mothers and fathers sprinted down the road toward us, cradling their children. Others yanked them behind like rag dolls. A man in an oily jumpsuit smashed a car window with a crowbar on our left. I slowed the Jeep, trying to make my way through the human thicket.” The author mixes horror and crime elements with some imaginative worldbuilding and a satisfying psychological element. Though they at times adhere to type, her characters are well defined, and the audience will have no trouble getting caught up in Liz’s emotional plunge through the dark. Readers will look forward to seeing what lurks in the next volume.
An inventive, thoughtfully constructed, chilling fantasy.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-95370-0
Page Count: 364
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A new and contemplative take on the vampire novel.
Following a vampire across more than 200 years, this novel considers “whether this world and life in it is a kindness or an unkindness, a blessing or a curse.”
At the age of 10, Anna faces illness and death daily as an epidemic sweeps through her town. After the deaths of her father and brother, and when she's at her sickest, her grandfather arrives. Just as she’s about to succumb to the illness that killed her whole family, he transforms her into a vampire like himself. When she asks him why he did it, he replies: “This world, my dear child, all of it, right to the very end if there is to be an end, is a gift. But it’s a gift few are strong enough to receive. I made a judgment that you might be among those strong few, that you might be better served on this side of things than the other. I thought you might find some use for the world, and it for you.” The years that follow are difficult and often wrought with loss for Anna. She lives many lives over the centuries and eventually takes on the name Collette LaSange, opening a French preschool in Millstream Hollow, New York. Chapters alternate between Anna’s life beginning in the 1830s and her current life in 1984 as Collette. Notable points of tension arise when Collette tries unsuccessfully to sate her hunger, which is becoming increasingly unbearable, and as her interest in the artistic growth of a student named Leo deepens. Through decadently vivid prose—which could have been streamlined at times—this hefty novel meditates on major themes such as life, love, and death with exceptional acumen. The final questions in the book—“How presumptuous is the gift of life? What arrogance is implicit in the act of love that calls another into existence?”—serve as an anchor to meditations on these themes found throughout.
A new and contemplative take on the vampire novel.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781250856760
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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