An intriguing and atmospheric queer mystery that’s peppered with the supernatural.
In a former mining town with a bloody history called Copper City, the most haunted place in North America, four young women—Audrey, Mara, Zadie, and Shirley—are inextricably connected through time itself by the sudden and mysterious disappearance of a local high school student.
Days after Mara is brutally murdered and her body is found in the long abandoned—and reportedly haunted—Copper City mines, her restless and vengeful spirit takes up residence in her cousin Audrey’s mind. While neither girl is particularly thrilled by this sudden possession, especially Audrey, the two are forced to work together when a growing string of disappearances threatens the livelihood and safety of their home town. With the help of Mara’s ex-girlfriend, Zadie, and haunted by their grandmother Shirley’s connections to the supernatural, the girls race to piece together the truth before the killer who took Mara’s life strikes again. Using alternating points of view, Madrid does a flawless job at helping readers to differentiate between each young woman as their collective story unfolds. Each have distinct voices, and all four are deeply flawed and feel undeniably like teenagers trying to find their place in the world. Audrey is insecure and bends to Mara’s will; Zadie is often self centered and unfaithful to Mara; Mara is manipulative and borderline abusive to Audrey; and Shirley struggles to balance her prophetic visions with real life. (Shirley’s chapters unfold 55 years in the past, gradually revealing that she’s Mara and Audrey’s grandmother, though she’s a teenager for most of the story.) Copper City feels like a character in itself, packed with small-town lore and a bloody history that haunts its inhabitants. The result is a sharp and atmospheric whodunit and a queer ghost story packed full of twists that will leave readers guessing.
An intriguing and atmospheric queer mystery that’s peppered with the supernatural.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781951971342
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Creature Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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