A grim, profound, and well-crafted tale of redemption.
An ex-con struggles to escape his criminal past in Henson’s debut novel.
Crit Poppwell is paroled after serving nearly all of his 15-year stint on a drugs and weapons charge. He returns to Breathitt County, Kentucky, suffering from ever-ringing tinnitus (from an inmate’s unwarranted assault) and cultivating a newly discovered skill in art. He takes a room in a local motel, snags a part-time gig as a garbage collector, and, with encouragement from Sister Nikhael (who teaches art to inmates), plans to sell his illustrations. Now Crit can start afresh, though he may not want to, as he’s weighed down by guilt over an unforgivable crime he got away with prior to his incarceration. He does, however, strive to stay off drugs, which means avoiding his dope-peddling younger brother, Chrome. But Crit also wants to help his motel neighbor, Rennie, a single mother and a user hooked on Chrome’s illicit goods. Henson’s flawed hero gradually earns sympathy in this somber, riveting drama; Crit, who’s lived a life of crime, may push people away, but he seems to be a better man than he once was. Even the details about his worst transgression, while startling, explain his years-long suffering and his “death wish” while behind bars. The story is rich in metaphorical action, from Crit doing maintenance around the dilapidated motel to renewing his expired driver’s license. The author deftly incorporates these elements into the narrative and delivers prose that engages the senses with descriptions of driving on a muddy Kentucky road in the “fragrant and damp” air while hearing the song of crickets and spying a “rusted old farm implement.” Despite the novel’s tendency to lean toward gloominess, supporting characters such as Rennie and Sister Nikhael provide welcome signs of hope.
A grim, profound, and well-crafted tale of redemption.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781643963273
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.
Could making a movie about the disappearance of five women from an island reawaken an evil presence there?
Five dresses hang from the topmost limbs of an oak on a remote island in a Vermont lake. That memorable image marks a mystery from a century ago, when five women believed to have been part of a commune vanished forever. As this novel opens, another group gathers on the island to make a movie based on that tale. Marin Keane, the narrator, is surprised but thrilled to find herself cast as one of the leads; she’s a struggling actor whose biggest part so far has been “Bridesmaid with Eczema” in a drug commercial, so playing Daisy Rue, whose haunting diary is the basis for the movie’s script, could be a career-making move. Ronan Peters, the writer-director, is talented and, Marin notes, hot. His reason for gathering the cast on the island is a kind of boot-camp rehearsal: They’ll spend a week living there, wearing period clothes, and managing without internet or phone service. Oh, and holding séances. What could go wrong? Marin quickly meets the other women in the cast: regal character actor Julianne Brown, cool and competent Heather Benchley, bratty former Disney star Susie Hutchinson, and, striking awe in all of them, Violet Wright, a much-awarded Meryl Streep-ish figure who will play the woman who brought the others to the island, which she owned. They get to work, but soon enough someone disappears. The book’s plot, like the movie’s script, largely follows Daisy’s journal, and since the reader is supplied with pages-long sections of that journal, there’s not much suspense about what will happen next. There are some effective set pieces, such as the group’s first séance. But in its last quarter, the plot collapses into a muddle of #MeToo vengeance, improbable secrets, and jarring character reveals that is, as Marin says, “the most Scooby-Doo thing I’ve ever heard.”
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798217044092
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
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
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