A delightful story that shows supernatural beings can be romantic—and also very funny.
Mars’ quirky cross-genre debut is a Romeo-and-Juliet tale with a vampire and an alien who meet when humans rebel against the extraterrestrials on Earth.
In 2025, an alien species known as the Staraban lands on Earth. With a warning that the planet is mere decades away from death, the Staraban promise to relocate humans to an alternative planet. Humans are understandably wary, and some form the Humans Against Relocation Movement, headquartered in California. HARM’s co-leader Jack Daniels, a hacker/blogger, has been gathering intel on the aliens. She’s also been a vampire for the past five years, although only her friend Aurora “Rory” Espinoza knows this. Hacking the aliens’ computers, Jack ultimately has a confrontation with Tarc, the Alien Relocation Cooperative commander. Like other Staraban, he’s virtually identical to humans, but Jack finds him especially alluring. Neither puts a lot of effort into resisting their mutual attraction, but trouble may lie elsewhere, as earthlings question the true motive of the Vrolan, the aliens who asked the Staraban to relocate humans. An abduction occurs, and the ensuing rescue demands that HARM and ARC work together. Although this prospective series opener gleefully tackles a variety of genres, Mars focuses primarily on comedy. The Staraban, for example, seem particularly fascinated by pizza, and Rory “tortures” an alien captive by stealing his French fries. However, other genres are equally discernible, from erotica (occasional explicit scenes between Jack and Tarc) to romance as their physical intimacy becomes something more. With aliens looking just like humans, some characters are indistinguishable; Jack eventually befriends Jill, who’s essentially the human version of the vampire. But Mars’ witty, dialogue-laden narrative begets standouts like Rory, who’s oddly immune to Jack’s vampiric glamour, and Hal, Jack’s readily available AI that, at some point, takes over Jack’s blog and proves surprisingly narcissistic.
A delightful story that shows supernatural beings can be romantic—and also very funny.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-951091-01-9
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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