A poignant and engaging thriller with a formidable lead character.
Two young college women embark on a canoe trip down the Thelon River in Canada’s Barren Lands when a tragic accident turns a wilderness adventure into a battle for survival in this debut novel.
Experienced canoeists Kurt Johnson and Ellie Johnson, a father-daughter writing team, present a vibrant, tender novel of love, loss, stamina, and self-discovery. It’s 2019, and friends and lovers Lee Harvey and Holly Stone met at Brown University six months ago. Holly has paddled the Thelon once before, and she’s anxious to reexperience the beauty, excitement, and tranquility of the vast preserve in Canada’s north country. Less than two weeks out, after the pair transport their heavy packs to the top of a canyon, they stop to take photos, and Holly falls off the cliff into the river’s swirling waters. Lee scrambles down the trail and along the riverbank, keeping her eyes on Holly as the rapids spit her out just past the eddy. Racing into the frigid water, Lee grabs hold of Holly’s life jacket and pulls the unresponsive woman to shore. She finally gets Holly to cough and begin taking a few shallow breaths, but Holly remains unconscious. It’s a grabber of an opening, and the authors effectively leave readers hanging during the next 10 chapters as Lee, the narrator, begins to fill in the backstory that brought the women to this point. Holly is effectively shown to be a woman who wants “her life to read like a collection of unique stories, one adventure after another,” but it’s Lee who spins out the episodic tales of her own troubled childhood, a narrative device that builds Lee into a fully fleshed-out character. The character development continues as Lee endures grueling challenges in the Barrens’ magical but forbidding wilderness. The work also draws on the authors’ expertise, offering a wealth of detailed information about the techniques, equipment, and minute-to-minute decision-making involved in a canoeing adventure, which will appeal to aspiring paddlers.
A poignant and engaging thriller with a formidable lead character.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-950994-48-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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