An ambitious and moody, if occasionally puzzling, supernatural thriller.
A fantasy tale about the political squabbles of a group of witches.
Travis belongs to a long line of esteemed witches in an ancient coven in Bucharest, Romania. The coven has kept itself secret for centuries, relying on ritual killings, disguised as accidents, to sustain itself. Travis’ parents, Monica and Victor, are interested in a more advanced magic that feeds off mortal fear and the reanimation of dead people, which they believe would relieve the coven of the need to kill; they begin to experiment with it even though the council of witches forbids it. As a result, the council kills Monica and Victor, leaving Travis an orphan. Hard-line council members, dedicated to the old ways, see him as a threat and attempt to kill him, too, but he escapes and meets up with fellow orphan and excommunicated witch Sorinah Patrascu in Bratislava. Under her tutelage, Travis hones his skills. Over a century later, he moves to the sleepy American town of Sussex, Vermont, to put his parents’ magic to the test. Specifically, he plans to wreak havoc on the town in order to draw enough power to seek revenge against the witch council. His plan becomes complicated when he becomes romantically involved with Paula, his mortal neighbor, and gets to know her children and their friends. Meanwhile, a scheming council member has learned of Travis’ plans and will do anything to stop him. Gabriel, over the course of his debut novel, offers a story that’s truly action-packed. However, its frequent time-jumps, which have a cinematic feel, can be disorienting. Within the first 20 pages of the novel, for example, readers are taken from Travis’ 15th birthday to his parents’ young adulthood in the 1870s to Travis’ birth and then to his 12th birthday. That said, the author still manages to set up a fast-paced, complex tale of good and evil featuring a protagonist who has morally unconventional motivations. The story’s conclusion, though, is a bit too rushed to be fully satisfying—particularly after all the heady groundwork that precedes it.
An ambitious and moody, if occasionally puzzling, supernatural thriller.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 347
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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