A supernatural tale with engaging characters and psychic powers that lays the groundwork for a planned series.
Teenagers with supernatural abilities may be the only ones who can stop creatures from a parallel world from consuming all life on Earth in Alexander’s debut sci-fi thriller.
Sixteen-year-old Kyle Tanner doesn’t stay at schools for very long, as he either flunks out or gets kicked out. His problems, at least in part, stem from his recurring nightmares of terrifying creatures from another world. These dreams, however, make Kyle an ideal candidate for mysterious Banville Academy. Dr. Alistair Jameson gives the boy a tour of the school, introducing him to peers who have psychic gifts, including telepathy, telekinesis, and empathic abilities. Kyle, like Jameson himself, has a rare gift called Night Walking, in which his consciousness leaves his body during sleep. The teen then roams the “antiverse,” which is populated by Night People that feed on energy from the waking world. Kyle faces derision from “telek” Cody and “telep” Ian, fellow students who can’t comprehend Kyle’s ability. There are definite perks to Banville, though: for the first time, Kyle actually makes friends, including a telep named Cheng Wu and Jameson’s granddaughter, an empath named Kira who can see from Kyle’s aura that he’s lonely. He also finds the potential for romance with telek Kate Garcia. But a threat looms over the school and the entire world. The sinister Dragnars hope to unite the antiverse and our world, allowing Night People to slaughter humans—and they begin by targeting Banville students for elimination. Alexander builds a solid foundation for his psychic-teen tale by concentrating on his fictional universe’s more relatable qualities. For example, Banville is, in many ways, a typical school. The way that teleks and teleps despise one another, for example, is reminiscent of the familiar jocks-versus-nerds dynamic. Likewise, other students constantly question Kyle’s gift and his worth, especially after Jameson puts together a team to combat a potential Dragnar assault. Kyle himself hardly understands how Night Walking works, which allows readers to learn about it alongside him during practices. The glimpses of the antiverse are the story’s most vivid moments, as when Kyle spies “a torrent of black water gushing from a break in the rocks far below” and later discerns “a lilting tune just out of hearing…a charming melody [that] grows stronger by the second.” There’s an assortment of remarkable creatures, such as “ravenors,” which are hairless, sexless, and at least 10 feet tall. The most nerve-wracking enemies, though, remain unseen, sometimes using their powers to make people watch—or attack—Banville students. The narrative also delves into numerous characters’ histories; Kate’s brother, Quin, has been “in kind of a coma since birth,” so she asks Kyle to try using his powers to reach him. The ending offers only slight resolution—one character even acknowledges the plethora of unanswered questions, such as why the Dragnars attempted to kidnap one specific person—but it makes for a fine setup for a sequel.
A supernatural tale with engaging characters and psychic powers that lays the groundwork for a planned series.Pub Date: May 15, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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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