Relatable YA fiction with a strong star and an informed, behind-the-scenes setting.
A talented teenage girl begins a life-changing journey to pop-star fame.
In the first installment of first-time author Kwasniewski’s series, 15-year-old Dani Truehart has already spent several years honing her singing voice and dance moves. Not even her pushy, critical, eyes-on-the-monetary-prize mom has dimmed Dani’s passion to pursue a career as a performer. (“My mother never stops. She is unrelenting, unforgiving, and utterly determined to make me into a star.”) When Dani’s dance mentor, Martin, a former boy-band star, arranges to have Dani audition for the agent/producer who once represented him, she is on her way to attaining her dream. Yes, there are rather unsurprising hitches and challenges that get in her way—Dani’s disillusionment with her mom and ineffectual father, her fear of losing her boyfriend in her trajectory toward stardom, and her sadness at her lack of social life (“My friends are living their lives without me. I feel like I’m missing out”)—but she is more than prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. Dani is a well-rounded lead; we see her self-absorption as well as her drive to succeed and transcendent vocal talent. And, although other characters exist primarily as her satellites, Martin’s empathy and warmth feel rooted in life experience. Kwasniewski’s background in film and television production provides authenticity, and she evocatively limns the world Dani finds herself in as she works to get signed with a major record label: vocal practice, dance lessons and choreography, gym workouts, costume fittings, makeup and hair consultations, lessons in how to handle the press, work with a temperamental songwriter, etc. It’s heady stuff when Dani’s songs get airplay, social media takes notice, and she begins doing interviews and making publicity appearances. Will Dani’s burgeoning fame be the happily-ever-after it seems poised to be? The sequel, Burning Bright (2021), seems likely to reveal the answer.
Relatable YA fiction with a strong star and an informed, behind-the-scenes setting.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-950544-16-5
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Rand-Smith LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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