A largely lackluster addition to the haunted house genre.
A man’s new home might be the epicenter for a powerful evil in this first installment of Cooper’s horror series.
Kevin Swan comes into possession of a 97-year-old house in the remote wilds of California (somewhere outside Pasadena), where the closest town is a small mountainside village. With only his German Shepherd, Princess (“a strapping, adult male, rescue dog; the unfortunate moniker had come with him”), for company, he soon begins to notice strange happenings in his new home. Tired of bickering with his dog like they’re an old married couple, on a whim Kevin picks up two homeless men from a parking lot to help him around the manor in exchange for room and board. The motley crew quickly realizes that supernatural occurrences are happening with increasing frequency; books about dark magic randomly appear, and they find a chalkboard with weird runes written on it. Kevin attempts to get help from a Caltech professor with an interest in the occult, but neither he nor “Spooky,” another casual dabbler in the dark arts, can provide many answers. Kevin resolves to figure out the mystery of this haunted house or die trying as he encounters more dark forces at play. Cooper tells a strange tale that adequately unsettles but often loses itself in long-winded tangents that are a slog to follow and sometimes even confusing to the reader. Sudden switches to different perspectives, such as that of a knife or a Chinese woman called “Shenzhen Lady,” occur with no explanation for their purpose within the narrative. The writing is disjointed and overly descriptive, lingering on unimportant moments of housework or inner musings in favor of furthering the plot. The characters are either barely present or one-dimensional, with Kevin the only one given a detailed backstory. The ending is a head-scratching cliffhanger that leaves room for a sequel that will hopefully have more answers than questions.
A largely lackluster addition to the haunted house genre.Pub Date: May 11, 2022
ISBN: 9798810054955
Page Count: 495
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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