An enticing tale and an effective introduction to an expansive fictional world.
In Arriaza’s supernatural debut novel, a doctor aids a wounded stranger who shows up on her property and then faces a wave of otherworldly creatures.
Dr. Melisa Castro plans to spend her vacation in bed with Chris Kosmatka, her fiance and the father of her son-to-be. But while she waits for Chris to return from work, someone else drops by—a man who rolls down a hill, right into her LA backyard. As she tends to him, she’s shocked by his large, open, but bloodless chest wound, and when she touches it, she has a vision of the man restrained and someone stabbing him. Elsewhere in the city, the enigmatic Ranald, who perpetually wears a leather jacket and sunglasses, is trying to track down a stolen dagger. The blade had the power to kill a powerful individual known as the Hunter, whose now-missing body was its last resting place. The Hunter could also be linked to vicious animal attacks that cops (including Melisa’s brother, Walter) are investigating. As her visions continue, Melisa also learns that she’s marrying into a family that hides a dark secret. Arriaza’s entertaining tale features a few traditional supernatural beings that readers will recognize, but he employs their familiarity to the story’s advantage, simplifying the plot by cutting down on unnecessary back story. This helps the book maintain a steady momentum, particularly in the brisk final act, which is filled with inevitable confrontations. The real highlights, however, are the characters’ constantly shifting alliances. Some of the descriptions are repetitive (the word “massive,” for instance, is used too often), but they detail the action in concise, clipped sentences: “She can see his eyes. Beautiful blue eyes. He is screaming something; she can’t understand it.” Much of the explanation of what’s really going on, including ties to religion, is reserved for the end, and it’s coherent while also leaving plenty to explore in future planned volumes.
An enticing tale and an effective introduction to an expansive fictional world.Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9987933-0-6
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Rio Dulce Books
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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