A slow-paced thriller that ultimately delivers.
Brent Michaels must prevent the devil from unleashing hell on Earth in this thriller by Johnson.
Brent, a corporate attorney, never dreamed that he would be the key to uncovering an ancient plan of the devil’s to lure humanity into evil. But after a visit from a mysterious friend of his deceased father, Mr. Baumann, and the tragic murder of his sister, Brent embarks on a journey to avenge her death and to find and destroy the Scrolls of Darkness. Thus begins Johnson’s epic, Da Vinci Code-like thriller. As it turns out, Brent may not be as ordinary as he once thought: An ancient prophecy foretells that he’s the only one who can fulfill the covenant his ancestor made to destroy the scrolls and defeat the shadowy group known as the Sons of Darkness. Brent sets out for New Zealand to get help from beautiful, intelligent Melauni Sherwood, an archaeologist. In New Zealand, Brent plunges into the supernatural. A meeting with Lucifer himself and a visit from his sister convince him of his true calling. In a whirlwind adventure, Brent travels to Paris and Rio in search of his sister’s assassins and to Israel in hopes of using the Urim and Thummim, an ancient instrument that allows one to receive revelations from God, to find the scrolls. Despite the dire stakes of the novel, the plot meanders slowly and stints on action. Beyond Brent’s hunt for his sister’s killers, it often feels as though Johnson merely moves pieces around on a chessboard with no real purpose. Brent finally searches in earnest for the scrolls more than midway through the thriller. While the novel doesn’t break any ground when it comes to its genre, Johnson concocts a clever, shocking plot twist that leads to a satisfying, exciting conclusion that also sets up more adventures for Brent Michaels.
A slow-paced thriller that ultimately delivers.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1432795313
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.
Debut authors Pi and Pi offer a debut picture-book alphabet of occupations, featuring photos of children playing dress-up.
Each of the 26 pages of this book features a photo, with illustrated details, of a child in the midst of a game of dress-up and imagination. The first shows a cheerful girl, costumed as a doctor, imagining, “What can I be today?” For “A,” a young artist paints on an easel; then, in a transition sentence, she decides to do ballet. The next page shows a ballerina who, when she gets hungry, visits a chef—and so on. Most transitions make sense, and the photos of children with occupation props, set against mostly white backgrounds, offer plenty of smiles. The simple sentences make this book easy to read aloud to its early childhood target audience. However, a few job titles may be a stretch for them to understand, such as “geologist,” “horticulturalist,” and “optician.” The jobs are varied and include artistic positions (illustrator, knitter, musician), service professions (firefighter, judge, librarian, soldier), and science jobs (engineer, X-ray technician). Surprisingly, the only sports-related position is an umpire, but a leading question at the end, about other jobs that one may discover, leaves room for young listeners to create their own.
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4808-5453-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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