An immersive and affecting story of injustice and an exemplification of the unbreakable human spirit.
Two victims of abuse in mid-20th-century America fight for justice and survival.
In the summer of 1948, 22-year-old Billy Dalton is driving home through Kane County, North Carolina, when he comes across two cars blocking the road. One of these drives off as the other explodes, and Billy helps a young woman and her toddler daughter escape from the burning vehicle. Billy himself is badly burned and wakes in the hospital to find that nobody believes his story; there is no sign of the woman or her child or evidence of any cars other than his own. Racism is endemic in Kane County, as Billy, a White man, starts to realize when he is charged with drunken driving and placed in a jail, where he expresses concern over a Black inmate’s eye injury. The prisoner explains, “The jailer’s the one who gave it to me. They come get us and then take us out and beat us up anytime they want. No reason. Just because they can. They mostly leave white folks alone.” Billy is imprisoned without proper medical attention. His wounds fester, and he emerges badly disfigured to begin a new, unhappy life. The woman, it transpires, does exist. She is 22-year-old Lacey Evers, the unacknowledged daughter (through rape) of Judge Harkins, the corrupt presiding jurist of Kane County. United years later, can she and Billy find the justice they were denied? The narrative is simple but effective, buoyed by unforced dialogue that allows the story’s emotional impact to emerge naturally. Though Kane County is fictitious, the institutional corruption and power imbalance feel all too real. Unfortunately, Lubitz’s portrayal of the abominable treatment of Black people in America, a strong thematic thread throughout the novel, doesn’t quite ring true—not because such mistreatment didn’t exist but because the racial slurs are excessively softened, and Lubitz introduces a White character who helpfully calls it out. That said, Lacey and Billy are vivid representatives of a historical period that was all too frequently characterized by gross injustice. Their respective plights will invest readers in their story, and their endurance and eventual flourishing cannot help but inspire.
An immersive and affecting story of injustice and an exemplification of the unbreakable human spirit.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9798372097766
Page Count: 347
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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