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PILLOW FRIEND

The first soft strokes of Tuttle's haunting fourth novel (Lost Futures, etc., not reviewed) build slowly, subtly into a relentless chiller. As a child in Austin, Texas, Agnes Grey is deeply influenced by her wildly exotic, unpredictable aunt Marjorie (her mother's twin sister), a would-be writer. Marjorie, though, never visits while Agnes's distracted mother, Mary, is at home, and the aging Mary, for that matter, is forever fruitlessly taking off for Hollywood to become a starlet. The fact is that little Agnes has never seen the twins side by side. The rather crabbed Marjorie has a plain, bare cabin in the wilds where Agnes spends one summer and, disturbingly, finds that her wishes are magically granted. Throughout childhood, she has desired an imaginary playmate, a doll that will literally talk to her, and now she gets Myles, a small antique figure who seems to whisper to her each night in bed. Then he disappears. Agnes, much like her aunt, has unknowingly trained her dreaming mind to produce waking-state companions and lovers who actually seem to have life and substance, not to mention an alarming habit of appearing when they're least expected. Her imagination is so powerful that one lover she has unconsciously created even gives her (at age 30) a hysterical pregnancy that goes full term. Agnes's love affair with scruffy British poet Graham Storey, whom she's admired since her teens, leads to marriage and turmoil, even though Graham seems to possess an intuitive understanding of Agnes's chaotic ego and has a desire to help her sort her life out. Housekeeping in literary London and vacations in Scotland flicker between reality and Agnes's darker undercurrents, whose depths stand fully revealed when her mother dies: Her ``twin'' Marjorie never comes to the funeral—for a very good reason. Brilliantly murmurous, with extreme states of mental disorder presented as if they were as normal as blueberries on cottage cheese.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996

ISBN: 1-56504-938-1

Page Count: 336

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996

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DARK MATTER

Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.

A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.

Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.

Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.

Pub Date: July 26, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016

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A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.

In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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