Well-sketched characters carry a slow-paced but effective start to a potential series.
In this future-set Christian thriller, experts must decide if alarming global events are signs of an approaching apocalypse.
One day in 2038, barrages of fiery hailstones pummel countries around the world. This freak incident is over quickly, but its impact lasts much longer as the hailstones severely burned anyone and anything they hit. The president of the United States puts together a committee of scientists to try to provide an explanation for the damaging storms. Other terrifying global events follow, including ocean vortexes that take down ships; apparently contaminated water that causes hallucinations and violent episodes; and other natural disasters, including earthquakes. Mike Lathan, who’s studying pastoral ministry in Dallas, and a promising Seattle science student named Rina Adelstein join their respective mentors at experts’ meetings, where some are convinced that there’s a scientific explanation for all that’s happening. Spiritual advisors, however, note similarities between the ongoing events and familiar biblical stories. Mike and others believe that the phenomena are God’s punishment for an amoral world and part of a prophecy foretelling the End of Days. Scott deftly packs a world-spanning tale into a relatively compact novel. Along the way, he zeroes in on the absorbing romance between Mike and Rina; both characters are well-developed, as when Rina faces a personal tragedy back in her hometown of Tel Aviv. Secondary characters receive much less attention, but several brief scenes reveal the devastating events’ worldwide consequences, showcasing specific effects on such places as North Africa, Japan, and Italy: “As Francesco Vincenzo was locking up his private law office, he heard the noise and looked upward toward the gulf to see what appeared to be a black cloud, a very large one, moving rapidly toward the downtown area.” The author weaves an overt but never overwhelming Christian theme into the storyline, which proceeds as a deliberate pace as several rounds of discussions churn out proposals while passing years pile on catastrophes. The book covers just over a decade, and its ending hints at a sequel.
Well-sketched characters carry a slow-paced but effective start to a potential series.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9798985687002
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blesscott Company, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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