Twenty-two delvings into horror, lust, madness, flying blood, and defiled flesh. Anthologists Collins (the paperback Wild Blood, etc.), Kramer, and Greenberg kick off their album of original tales with Stephen King's delightful study in grisliness, ``Lunch at the Gotham Cafe''about a broker whose wife has left him and who meets her and her therapist in a Manhattan eatery for lunch and talk; there, the three are mistaken by a nutty mÉitre d' as the people whose dog keeps him awake all night, following which the bedeviled fellow goes berserk, pulls out a butcher knife and works them over. The spillage climaxes wryly as the wife fails to mellow, though her husband has saved her life. The late Michael O'Donoghue follows with his smiley little filmscript about ``The Psycho'' who gets up in the morning, goes out and kills broadly, then returns to bed after a hard day's work as his victims one by one arise from death, this, after all, being Valentine's Day. Kathy Koja's ``Pas de Deux'' tells of the hunger and love of an anorexic ballerina who uses up endless young pickups, without condoms, and dances ever more blissfully for them, as she waits for the prince her mother told her would come. Standouts are ``Going Under,'' Ramsay Campbell's brilliant story of a jogger going mad and being crushed in a tunnel full of other joggers; George C. Chesbro's tale of David Koresh's gasoline raptures at ``Waco''; and, best of all, Douglas E. Winter's ``Loop,'' about obsession with a child porn star into her adulthood, her snuff film, and farewell as meat on a coroner's slab. As horror writer T.E.D. Klein suggests in his startled, all- this-may-have-gotten-a-bit-out-of-hand introduction, one has to be a little off-center to like this in-your-face grue. Utterly ghastly but, ugh, at times inspired.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-451-45472-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: ROC/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
Wistful yet hopeful, the story is a needed addition to a genre that usually celebrates the romances of younger protagonists.
A Westcott novella that celebrates the second-chance love of a couple in their 50s.
Nondescript spinster Matilda Westcott temporarily abandoned her typical role as the backdrop for her aristocratic Regency family to bring about the happy ending of Someone To Honor (2019). Here, Balogh gives her a romance of her own with a former suitor 36 years after she turned him down (like Anne Elliott in Jane Austen's Persuasion). Charles Sawyer, Viscount Dirkson, is surprised to learn that he still has feelings for his first love, whom he thought he had forgotten soon after she rejected his marriage proposal. Now a grandfather with a newly forged connection to the Westcotts, he finds himself reestablishing their connection in the hope of a new outcome. Matilda, who had convinced herself that she made the right decision as a young woman, finally faces her own cowardice—a realization aided by her mother’s apology for having advised her wrongly. Surrounded by a supportive extended family, she must decide if her youthful love has truly withered or she is willing to let it flower in her middle age in defiance of public mockery. The on-the-shelf heroine’s growth into a full-fledged person will not surprise anyone who knows the author’s ability to reframe women characters. This novella is introduced by a letter from Balogh explaining the development of the Westcott family series and summarizing each of the earlier novels, and the book ends with excerpts from each of them. While these may help new readers or refresh the memories of those who have forgotten the details, others may be put off by what could be perceived as padding.
Wistful yet hopeful, the story is a needed addition to a genre that usually celebrates the romances of younger protagonists.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-09972-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Despite some missteps, this is a powerful story of a marriage in trouble.
A working-class couple on Long Island fights to save their marriage.
Rosie and Dominic Vega were middle school sweethearts who married right before Dominic deployed with the Army after high school. Ten years later, Rosie realizes she’s tired of working at the department store perfume counter. She decides to pursue her dream of opening a restaurant specializing in the Argentinian cuisine she learned from her beloved mother. Dominic and Rosie’s sex life is as explosive and satisfying as ever, but it also illustrates the holes in the rest of their marriage. Rosie realizes they never talk anymore—she doesn’t know how to talk to him about the restaurant—and she decides their stagnant marriage must change if she’s going to change the rest of her life. Dominic knows that something has been amiss, but his own insecurities have led him to follow his father’s example: He works hard and provides and hopes the rest will work itself out. Rosie asks Dominic to go to marriage therapy, convinced he’ll never agree. Their hippie marriage counselor, along with adding a needed measure of comic relief, helps Dominic and Rosie realize they each played a role in the disintegration of their relationship. The exploration of their marriage is emotionally satisfying, but a subplot involving implausible real estate dealings is hard to believe. It’s worth noting that, although Rosie is biracial, with an African American father and Argentinian mother, and Dominic is from a Puerto Rican family, the most well-developed connection to either of their cultural identities is Rosie's love of Argentinian cuisine. Readers hungry for diversity and inclusivity in their romance deserve more than superficial identity markers like these. However, Bailey (Fix Her Up, 2019, etc.) crafts an emotionally wrenching and compelling story of a marriage and how the spouses' different love languages cause them to miss each other’s signals.
Despite some missteps, this is a powerful story of a marriage in trouble.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-287285-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
© Copyright 2025 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.
