by Lance Erlick ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2017
An interplanetary tale with an effectively slow build that leads to a solid climax.
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An expedition to one of Jupiter’s moons leads to contact with an alien species that may be plotting a takeover of Earth in Erlick’s (Regina Shen: Endurance, 2016, etc.) sci-fi novel.
Dr. Elena Sweetwater Pyetrov is excited to continue her father Alexander’s work on Europa, where his ship disappeared nearly two decades earlier. But when her shuttle inexplicably passes by a necessary pit stop on Earth’s moon, her on-again, off-again fiance, Capt. Marc Carlisle, tells her that something’s pulling them toward Jupiter. After they survive a crash landing on what appears to be Europa, Elena encounters an older man: her father, accompanied by his 13-year-old daughter, Thelma. He tells Elena of an alien race, the Knoonk, that provided him with food and a communications link to Earth—but as he talks to her, his finger taps out a secret Morse code message: “e-v-i-l.” Soon Elena and Marc find others from their ship and realize that the Knoonk are pushing humans to mate with the promise of sustenance and shelter. It turns out that there are many other captive earthlings who eventually wage war against one another, while pregnant women and children mysteriously vanish. All the while, the Knoonk are scouring Earth for their Royal Couple, who are hiding there in human form. Erlick quickly drops readers into the story, getting the characters to Jupiter by the second chapter. Much of the rest of the novel adopts a more leisurely pace as it tells a tale of captive humans resisting oppressive aliens. It’s a potent concept, although it’s occasionally undersold: the frightening notion of some humans worshiping the Knoonk, for example, doesn’t quite offset descriptions that comically downplay the aliens, such as, “The Knoonk had destroyed their food to get them to hook up.” The dynamic between the sisters, however, is quite engaging; Elena overcomes Thelma’s indecipherable speech—which consists of seemingly random rhymes—with Morse code, bonding by using their father’s method of communication. There are quite a few twists as well, including revelations of the Knoonk’s origins and some of the things they’ve done to the humans as well as a few intriguing developments back on Earth. Overall, it’s a fine launch for a potential series.
An interplanetary tale with an effectively slow build that leads to a solid climax.Pub Date: March 8, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Finlee Augare Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Robinne Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2017
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.
When Solène Marchand takes her 12-year-old daughter to a concert by the hottest boy band on the planet, she doesn't expect to fall in love with one of the singers.
Middle-aged art gallery owner Solène hasn’t dated since her divorce, but when her ex-husband buys their daughter and a group of her friends tickets to Vegas and a backstage concert experience, then backs out at the last minute, she steps in as escort. The five guys in the wildly popular English boy band August Moon appeal to women of all ages, but Hayes, the brains behind the group’s success, flirts with Solène at the concert meet and greet, invites them to a party after the show, then pursues her once she gets back to Los Angeles. He’s only 20 and he’s incredibly famous; his attention is flattering and heady. The two fall into an affair that’s supposed to be light and easy, but before long they can’t ignore their intense emotional attachment. Solène is hesitant to tell her daughter, but when she procrastinates, Isabelle learns about it through an online tabloid, which damages their relationship and leaves Solène open to censure from her ex. Then, once the affair goes viral, she experiences the darker side of Hayes’ fan base. What started out as a jaunty adventure turns into an emotionally fraught journey, and Solène must decide what she’s willing to risk for her happiness and what she won’t risk for her daughter’s. Actress Lee, who appeared in Fifty Shades Darker, debuts with a beautifully written novel that explores sex, love, romance, and fantasy in moving, insightful ways while also examining a woman’s struggle with aging and sexism, with a nod at the tension between celebrity and privacy.
A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-12590-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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