An imaginative series debut with a spooky plot, chilling details, and a wholesome family.
A family relocating to northern New England finds a nightmare within their perfect new house in Halbert’s supernatural thriller.
After a careful search, the Keane family, formerly of Boston, have found the ideal New England property to relocate to. With a mixture of anticipation and reservation, married couple Ian and Lyana move to bucolic Littleton, New Hampshire, with their children—Ariel, who’s 15, and Zach, who’s 12 and on the autism spectrum. Hoping to slow their pace of life down and better connect with each other, the family becomes enchanted with an old English Tudor-style manor on Farr Hill. The house, “hugged by trees,” comes complete with a hidden driveway, an imposing rustic appearance, expansive gardens, and an architecturally “unique blend of masonry and woodwork.” The house was built in 1933 by a man who mysteriously disappeared 40 years later. The owner’s nephew, Marshall, eventually assumed control of the property and has remained as a groundskeeper for decades while assorted families moved in—and then hurriedly moved back out, claiming the house was haunted. As the town gossip mill churns, the rumors begin to seem real: Lyana hears whispers in the halls, the kids discover hidden rooms and doorways with cryptic symbols on the grounds, the image of a little girl appears in the pantry, the walls and floors begin to shift, and a series of horrifying, mind-bending dreams make Ian and Lyana begin to question their sanity. Marshall’s cabin, located on the manor grounds, offers more frights than answers, but the family stands together as the mystery deepens and their dream of a fresh start seems ever more elusive. Ian leans on his profession to understand the situation confronting his family. (He’s a professor of ancient history who studies ancient tribal communities and their role in creating the towns and villages that thrive in contemporary society.) He uses his knowledge to his advantage as the novel plays out, until a crushing medical malady stuns the Keane family.
In this inaugural volume of the Goodpasture Chronicles, Halbert puts a new spin on classic horror and suspense tropes of the “creepy old house with a malevolent entity embedded in its walls” variety. Though the story has moments of suspenseful tension, the narrative stumbles somewhat and loses momentum once Lyana’s tragedy is revealed and a rather implausible development results from it. Nevertheless, the author’s authentic, believable characters provide a sturdy framework for the drama taking place inside (and outside) the manor, and the short chapters keep things moving along at a brisk pace. Plenty of character backstory adds depth to the tale. Some of the most riveting scenes involve the adventurous children as they wander the property grounds discovering new areas of the “spooky woods,” which are chillingly depicted but never fully explored. Still, the author successfully and cleverly re-creates and refreshes the haunted house yarn with a fresh sense of dark wonder and mystery, adding plenty of eerie nuances that are creepy but ultimately harmless and devoid of anything that’s graphically terrorizing, which will appeal to adult and YA reading audiences alike. The concluding scene will have thriller fans primed for the next installment.
An imaginative series debut with a spooky plot, chilling details, and a wholesome family.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781963366051
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Eald Talu House
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
SEEN & HEARD
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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