Readers willing to jump down the rabbit hole with Amaya will not suffer from a lack of twists and surprises.
From author Cruzado (Maria, 2014) comes a fantastical sci-fi novel about a world in chaos.
Not long after being fired from his job at an advertising firm in Puerto Rico, Daniel Amaya was unexpectedly invited to dinner with a prominent physician. Over dinner with said physician and guests, Amaya’s difficulties only increase. Much to the dismay of others, Amaya seems to be completely out of touch with certain aspects of the world around him, not the least of which involves a supervillain known as Mercury, who terrorizes the area and forces citizens into a panic by his mere presence. Though confused by his circumstances, Amaya appears to be undergoing positive physical changes. As his wife remarks, “You are visibly taller. Your skin is darker. You look stronger.” Elsewhere, in the Middle East, a figure calling himself Yahweh appears. Leaving a trail of destruction in his path, he convinces many people that he is truly a jealous and vengeful God. As if that weren’t troublesome enough, the White House is in turmoil over a nuclear threat from Soviet Russia, and the Supreme Chancellor Apollo of the planet Trafamaldor, more than 200 million light-years from Earth, is worried about something “he could feel but not explain.” What, readers will wonder, can ever become of all these varied crises? With Amaya emerging as a hero of sorts, it becomes clear that whatever happens is going to be outrageous, perhaps in multiple dimensions. Combining aspects of political drama, magical realism, and sci-fi—“But how did they reach the blue planet if AP-107 sacrificed his spaceship?”—the story is wild and ambitious. Though some portions can feel drawn out, particularly with regard to politicians who lack much in the way of creative dialogue—such as the president of the United States, who declares, “I’m the president here! I’m the one who gives the orders!”—the book moves the reader from strange place to stranger place at a punchy pace.
Readers willing to jump down the rabbit hole with Amaya will not suffer from a lack of twists and surprises.Pub Date: April 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5035-6017-8
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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