A horror tale by a gifted storyteller that, despite minor flaws, delivers a wickedly good ending.
A Texas woman considers accepting a demon’s proposal of marriage in order to save her family in Bastaros’ (Life Near the Sea, 2011) supernatural thriller.
Stacy Buchanan doesn’t know what to make of her disturbing dreams, in which she’s in a dark tunnel, unable to reach a crying baby. Her husband, Todd, attributes them to her natural concern for their 3-year-old daughter, Angel, but Stacy instead thinks that their house may be haunted. This belief is magnified when she starts seeing images of a menacing, demonic figure in windows and mirrors. The demon turns out to be Ayda, chief demon “from underground,” and she has an agenda: Her son, Anoushek, is so attracted to Stacy that he wishes to marry her. Stacy realizes that she doesn’t have much of a choice, particularly when Anoushek threatens to destroy her family if she rejects him. She has 10 days to decide whether to become a demon wife or to watch her husband and child die. This short novel’s mingling of demons and a married woman has shades of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967), but Bastaros adds fresh elements to the mix. For example, Stacy sees Ayda as unquestionably horrific in appearance, but she finds the pale-skinned Anoushek, a demon/human hybrid, rather handsome. Her impossible decision gives the story a component of drama, as well as suspense, although the author disappointingly skips over much of the 10-day countdown. The story is further enhanced by its general sense of uneasiness, courtesy of a creepy neighbor, Mrs. Heffernan, who freely admits to seeing ghosts. Later, Stacy experiences her dream in real life; this time, it includes another mother, whose veil can’t quite hide her “bulging red eyes.” The book does have some structural and grammatical issues: Ashour, Anoushek’s father, makes an early, sudden appearance but isn’t properly introduced until later; and Ayda, at several points, confusingly appears to be male. There are also other errors, such as when the story introduces Stacy’s mother, Lauren Silverman, as “Lauren Sullivan.” Overall, however, the author’s enthusiasm shines through, leaving readers with lasting images, such as two demons sitting on a sofa, waiting to interrupt Stacy’s psychiatrist appointment.
A horror tale by a gifted storyteller that, despite minor flaws, delivers a wickedly good ending.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
