A fast-paced hell ride of depravity that occasionally rests on genre clichés.
A sadistic clown with ties to outer space leads Alleva’s horror novel.
Jigglyspot is a half-human, half-warlock creature who typically dresses like a clown. He may only stand about 5 feet tall, but that doesn’t stop him from committing dastardly deeds like dispatching innocent people with a scalpel. Jigglyspot particularly enjoys consuming a substance from a living person’s brain (a process he refers to as “extraction”). The activity makes him feel good and temporarily gets rid of the gin blossoms on his nose. The summer of 2019 finds Jigglyspot organizing a celebration for the solstice that involves the consumption of human flesh. Jigglyspot puts a great deal of effort into the event to please his extraterrestrial masters, including his favorite, a tentacled being named Kera. Meanwhile, a teenager named Tyler Reese shoots his classmate James Reilly after duct-taping him to a chair. Tyler deems it a fitting end for the drug dealer/bully/rapist, but James’ ghost soon begins to follow Tyler around. As the storylines of Jigglyspot, Tyler, and others eventually converge, violence, torture, and mayhem are on the menu—shocking horror is the author’s fare, and the narrative delivers a steady supply. As numerous characters are introduced there is always an opportunity for someone to be slashed, sexually violated, or, at the very minimum, threatened with the harm of a loved one. It’s bracing stuff and not for the squeamish. Dialogue and descriptive passages are not always as inspired as the gory material: One character remarks, without irony, “I can’t believe it. You killed me, Jigglyspot.” Alleva’s prose often leans on standard horror language, as when Jigglyspot speaks with a “raspy voice that carried a hint of laughter behind it.” Nevertheless, the constant churn of bloodletting, demons, and aliens will keep readers on their toes.
A fast-paced hell ride of depravity that occasionally rests on genre clichés.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9798218177881
Page Count: 570
Publisher: Chamber Door Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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