A familiar but often heartwarming modern version of a Christmas miracle story.
A snowstorm traps a group of strangers in a mall on the day before Christmas in Milana’s debut novel.
The story centers around a melancholy occasion, even though it’s Christmas Eve in Chicago, as the Maplefield Mall is slated to be shuttered permanently. This is particularly poignant for Betty Bryant, who’s been the mall’s manager for decades and is now sadly presiding over its final celebration of the Christmas season. At her side, as always, is the mall’s general counsel, Leo Sawyer, who’s been her main support for many years, and Leo thinks of her as “one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable.” Lately, they’ve been plagued by the crisp, businesslike, young Darci Timbers, who is overseeing Maplefield’s closing, “hand-picked to work here by the real estate tycoon who owned this and many other shopping centers.” That tycoon, Malcolm Wiggins, is flying into Chicago to close this one himself, accompanied by his overworked assistant, Harry, who’d much rather be at home with his wife, Emily, who’s expecting their first child. A large cast of other characters joins these lines converging on the mall as a snowstorm moves in, including mall worker Elmer; Pastor Max, leader of a congregation in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods; and 14-year-old Karina, one of the troubled young people under Max’s care. When the snowstorm accelerates from “white Christmas” to holiday nightmare, these disparate characters face a crisis that changes all their lives. It’s a fairly pat premise, but Milana imbues it all with energy, and detail overcomes its predictability. That said, the characters are somewhat unevenly drawn. Betty and Leo shine with a warmly realized sense of humanity; for example, early on, Betty thinks, “No matter what the weather—rain or shine—and no matter the circumstances—feast or famine, Leo brought a fairy-tale kind of joy to her day.” However, Malcolm remains one-dimensional, even in a traumatic situation. The character-by-character setup, necessary to make readers care about them, feels overlong, and because the cast is so big, several minor plot threads feel slight. Even so, the final act redeems these flaws.
A familiar but often heartwarming modern version of a Christmas miracle story.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73543-641-8
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Madness To Magic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.
The adventures of a trio of genius kids united by their love of gaming and each other.
When Sam Masur recognizes Sadie Green in a crowded Boston subway station, midway through their college careers at Harvard and MIT, he shouts, “SADIE MIRANDA GREEN. YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY!” This is a reference to the hundreds of hours—609 to be exact—the two spent playing “Oregon Trail” and other games when they met in the children’s ward of a hospital where Sam was slowly and incompletely recovering from a traumatic injury and where Sadie was secretly racking up community service hours by spending time with him, a fact which caused the rift that has separated them until now. They determine that they both still game, and before long they’re spending the summer writing a soon-to-be-famous game together in the apartment that belongs to Sam's roommate, the gorgeous, wealthy acting student Marx Watanabe. Marx becomes the third corner of their triangle, and decades of action ensue, much of it set in Los Angeles, some in the virtual realm, all of it riveting. A lifelong gamer herself, Zevin has written the book she was born to write, a love letter to every aspect of gaming. For example, here’s the passage introducing the professor Sadie is sleeping with and his graphic engine, both of which play a continuing role in the story: “The seminar was led by twenty-eight-year-old Dov Mizrah....It was said of Dov that he was like the two Johns (Carmack, Romero), the American boy geniuses who'd programmed and designed Commander Keen and Doom, rolled into one. Dov was famous for his mane of dark, curly hair, wearing tight leather pants to gaming conventions, and yes, a game called Dead Sea, an underwater zombie adventure, originally for PC, for which he had invented a groundbreaking graphics engine, Ulysses, to render photorealistic light and shadow in water.” Readers who recognize the references will enjoy them, and those who don't can look them up and/or simply absorb them. Zevin’s delight in her characters, their qualities, and their projects sprinkles a layer of fairy dust over the whole enterprise.
Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-32120-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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