From first kiss to major plot twist, this romance novel offers two solid love stories for the price of one.
A teenage love affair, a wounded soldier, and the joys of motherhood make for a sweet romance about new beginnings.
When 15-year-old Halo Pearson meets 17-year-old Thomas Wells, a good kid from the wrong side of the tracks, she’s smitten. After her parents are killed in a car accident, her high school sweetheart truly becomes her everything. Fast-forward eight years, and Thomas has redeployed as a Navy SEAL in Iraq and served her with divorce papers. Meanwhile, Halo is in the hospital having their baby, Brandon. It’s not very happily-ever-after. Luckily, she meets Ryder St. John, a veteran who was badly injured in an ambush and has a case of amnesia, to boot. Strapped for cash and for company, Halo suggests that he rent her garage as an apartment, and Ryder easily slips into a role as the man of the house. Soon, the sexual tension ramps up. Still, Halo struggles with her fear of being abandoned again, while Ryder is wary of overstepping his bounds—and he also has no idea what life he’s left behind elsewhere. Plus, there’s always the chance that Thomas will make good on his oft-repeated promise: “You’re my halo, my ray of light. I will always find my way back to you.” Veteran romance novelist Stephens (Dick, 2016, etc.) calls upon a few classic conventions—the good girl who falls for the bad boy, the long-lost lover at war, the man with a blurry past—but this story feels far from contrived. After she front-loads it with racy scenes of teenage lust, the rest of the novel focuses on the gritty realities of a relationship’s ups and downs and the slow burn of a more adult affair, with some nice snippets of maternal affection. It’s a well-structured narrative—fast-paced, with timely flashbacks and changes in first-person perspective; Thomas’ chapters are particularly juicy. Between his PTSD, his fear of turning into his abusive father, and his inability to choose between his brothers-in-arms and his wife, he’s a sympathetic romantic hero. Ryder isn’t quite as well-developed, but readers will find this easy to overlook.
From first kiss to major plot twist, this romance novel offers two solid love stories for the price of one.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9953499-0-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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