An odd but mostly pleasing supernatural/equestrian tale.
A supernatural thriller about a woman finding herself and the horse she was destined to ride—before encountering a vampire.
In 2012, Silvia Milescu moves to America from Romania to be an au pair for the Bells in California’s Contra Costa County. She likes her host family, and the three young boys she cares for, but she truly loves visiting the Bells’ neighbor, Theresa, who keeps ponies on her land. Ever since Silvia was a small child, she’s been obsessed with horses, and she learned to ride them early on, against her mother’s wishes. Later, Silvia gets a weekend job at Ford Ranch, which offers trail rides, so that she can be around horses as much as possible. She’s distraught when it closes up shop to move to a less muddy location. But before too long, there are a few new horses at Theresa’s place, owned by a man named Walter; Silvia once again gets the chance to ride, and the horses’ owner even trains her in dressage. Later, at a horse show, Silvia takes second place. She knows that she’ll eventually have to leave the family that she works for, but for now, she’s enjoying her chance to learn from a master. Then she finds something new to worry about—when a vampire moves in nearby. Debut author Melecka offers an intriguing, well-written tale in this supernaturally tinged novel. However, the paranormal twist seems to come out of left field. If readers start the book expecting vampires, the first half, which focuses entirely on Silvia’s job and desire to ride, will feel like a strange, if not unpleasant, interlude. By the time the bloodsucker shows up, he feels out of place—partly because he’s suddenly providing narration.
An odd but mostly pleasing supernatural/equestrian tale.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-6495-1
Page Count: 226
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
PERSPECTIVES
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