Fans of Stephen King and Paul Tremblay will find this a satisfying escape into the woods.
In their debut novel, brothers Matt and Harrison Query explore the ultimate in buyer’s remorse: What if the home of your dreams wants you dead?
Longing to abandon their busy city lives for a quieter and more fulfilling wilderness existence, Harry and Sasha Blakemore gamble big on a remote Idaho property, sight unseen. Former Marine rifleman Harry hopes bonding with nature and his golden retriever will ease his combat trauma from Afghanistan, and Sasha wants to exchange corporate walls for wide-open spaces. With the snowcapped Tetons looming in the distance, their new homestead is everything they dreamed it would be and delivers even more than they bargained for. The couple’s blissful homecoming is interrupted when their nearest neighbors tell them there's a powerful spirit living in their valley and give them a guide to the strict rituals they must observe to survive its trials. Each season of the year presents a more deadly and challenging supernatural threat. The couple embraces their new life even as their skepticism about the paranormal wanes in the face of incontrovertible proof that it exists. Their choice to endure becomes less a matter of passion than persistence as they uncover more closely guarded and dangerous secrets. They may never leave the valley again. The authors combine their talent for action-packed horror scenes with picturesque descriptions of mountain living, creating refreshing lulls to contrast with the intense moments of terror. Though all the backstory that's loaded into the beginning of the book slows the pace of the early chapters—narrated alternately by Harry and Sasha—little goes to waste. The payoff is an emotional and psychological journey that deepens the layers of this entertaining horror story. Don’t forget to bring a four-legged ally; you’ll need all the help you can get.
Fans of Stephen King and Paul Tremblay will find this a satisfying escape into the woods.Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-2120-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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