A warm, witty two-hander that sidesteps the clichés of art school and indie film and treats its free spirits with respect.
The irrepressible Wilson presents a grunge-era fable about a pre-internet mass-hysteria incident and the alchemy of art.
Family dramas and short stories are the author’s sweet spots, but for this emotionally acute peek into the inner life of the artist, he’s turned to the uncomfortable exile of adolescence. Coalfield, Tennessee, circa 1996 is as remote (and boring) as any rural American outpost, so budding teen writer Frances "Frankie" Budge is intrigued when Zeke, a strange boy from Memphis, shows up at the public pool. “This town is weird,” the stranger observes. “It’s like a bomb was dropped on it, and you guys are just getting back to normal.” In the grip of summer’s dog days, Frankie and Zeke pursue their artistic outlets elbow to elbow, hers the written word, his visual arts. Joining forces, they make a poster emblazoned with a throwaway couplet about outlaws on the run: "The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us." Soon, they commandeer an old copy machine and plaster the town with their anonymous manifesto, punctuated by inevitable adolescent canoodling. What follows is a rough approximation of the “Satanic panic” of the Reagan-era 1980s, as the media labels the work “troubling street art” before it snowballs into a national hysteria that fortunately exists mostly on the periphery here. Wilson ignores the low-hanging fruit—Frankie and Zeke’s relationship is fundamentally a coming-of-age tale, but not in the way you might think. Instead, he focuses on the wonderful, terrible, transformative power of art. The catalyst for Frankie’s reluctant confession, 20 years later, is a visit from a New Yorker art critic convinced that Frankie wrote the infamous, trouble-causing line. In a world where art is often dismissed, Frankie will learn whether the line she created still holds the power she'd thought long since lost.
A warm, witty two-hander that sidesteps the clichés of art school and indie film and treats its free spirits with respect.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-291350-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.
Two ambitious athletes plus one fake-dating arrangement—what could go wrong?
Though it’s only his first season for the Boston Bearcats hockey team, Robbie Corrigan has a well-established reputation as a playboy. He’s got major skills on the ice, and he’s also much more likely to love ’em and leave ’em than he is to build any long, meaningful relationships. Naturally, he’s just met the one woman who seems completely resistant to his charm: Skylar Page, a Boston University softball pitcher. When they meet over a friendly Saturday morning baseball game, Robbie instantly makes a poor impression by bragging to his teammates about his latest conquest within Skylar’s hearing. He thinks she’s gorgeous, though, and when he sets his sights on her, he’s surprised that she doesn’t seem to know it. Despite her initial distaste for Robbie, Skylar grudgingly confesses that she could use his help. If they pretend to date, maybe her current crush—her brother’s best friend—will finally sit up and take notice of her in a romantic way. The timing is less than ideal, since Robbie will have to team up with Skylar in the Page family’s latest wilderness competition, but it turns out that Robbie’s willingness to play fake boyfriend stems from some very real feelings. He wants to prove to her that he’s a changed man, and redeeming himself in her eyes starts with making sure she knows that she can really trust him. The latest addition to Bailey’s Big Shots series is a sexy, feel-good romance brimming over with the author’s trademark humor and dirty talk. While Skylar and Robbie’s dynamic doesn’t quite reach the level of enemies-to-lovers—he’s so head-over-heels for her that there’s no room for any real mean-spiritedness—their playful snark doubles as a welcome dash of foreplay in the lead-up to some seriously steamy scenes. Robbie’s efforts to show Skylar that he’s turned over a new leaf also result in some of the book’s best moments, emphasizing his commitment to becoming the type of man he knows she deserves.
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780063380837
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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