Ominous, masterfully conceived psychological fiction.
De Voe’s short story collection features characters in devilish conundrums.
The short fiction collected here offers a series of themes and plot twists that are delightfully odd, unexpected, and borderline macabre. In the subtly effective opener, “Shutter,” a protective ghost perched in a tree observes the park bench interactions between a young struggling female actor and an elder with menacingly predatory intentions. “Tastemakers,” with its embedded satire of artistic communities, depicts grisly performance art set in a museum where crowdsourcing-funded artists synchronize their suicides while “the spectators all gasp.” The theme of family recurs frequently; an old witch in “The Scissors of Hope and Despair” may or may not have dementia, like her cocky granddaughter believes, but a strategic and revealing game of chess offers proof positive. One of the book’s longer tales, “Mom of the Year,” also touches on family bonds when an outspoken, award-winning mother of six has her standards challenged during a live reality TV talk show. The Brooklyn mother featured in “Left Brain” struggles with raising a young son stricken with a condition that limits his communication to numbers. Increasingly panicked, she fears that “his right brain was slowly eating his left brain like a psychopathic sibling jealously encroaching on shared space.” The sheer number of revolving narrators distinguishes “A Rose” from the rest of the collection, with De Voe exercising her creative muscles in this fairy tale gone awry. Closing out the collection is the shortest entry, the bravura “Virgin Flight 244, Chicago to Heathrow,” which, with great economy, manages to convey the horror of a wife giving birth to a demon child while seated in trans-Atlantic coach seats with her husband. As the new dad deals with the devil spawn and its hemorrhaging mother, De Voe’s disarming talents are on full display. Each story demonstrates De Voe’s gift for creating characters and scenarios that are just off the beaten path. Fans of The Twilight Zoneare certain to be mesmerized by this eerie anthology, filled with surreal wonder, sinister scenes, and a cast of eerily memorable characters.
Ominous, masterfully conceived psychological fiction.Pub Date: April 10, 2023
ISBN: 979-8987926901
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Borda Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An impressive and surprising take on war-story tropes.
A doughboy makes a curious discovery at the front in this inventive metaphysical horror tale.
This novel by Kraus centers on Private Cyril Bagger, a U.S. soldier during World War I and the son of a bishop who died on the Lusitania; he’s taken his father’s Bible with him into the Army as a remembrance. He’s also a confidence man and shirker relegated to burial duty in the French countryside, which is fine with him: The work is grotesque (Kraus depicts wartime deaths in visceral detail) but keeps him from becoming a corpse himself. Alas, his commander has hand-picked him and four other “disreputable” soldiers for a suicide mission to rescue what sounds like an incessantly shrieking soldier. Cyril finds the source of the shrieking, which turns out to be—well, that’s tricky. Cyril sees her as a vaguely familiar woman, clothed in red and blue, bathed in bright light, and capable of magically rescuing him from the worst of German gunfire; members of his cohort see a mother, a former lover, and other women. So for the purposes of Kraus’ novel, the shrieker is a metaphor for the ways war stands in contrast to our deepest needs for care and safety. It’s a sweet sentiment, albeit one that Kraus coats in a lot of ugliness, particularly the seemingly endless human carnage. Kraus structures the novel as an extended run-on sentence (with paragraph breaks), giving the story a relentless and intense rhythm. As a veteran horror writer, he’s gifted at depictions of blood and guts and knows how to keep a story moving, but in its latter stages the novel is a philosophical one as well, concerned with humanity’s seemingly inborn need to wage war and what might counter it. The identity of the woman Cyril calls an angel is vague, but Kraus has a clear grasp on our worst impulses.
An impressive and surprising take on war-story tropes.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781668068458
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
