A complex and intensely cinematic fantasy debut.
A man wrestles with his past while attempting to free a village of an evil entity in this debut paranormal thriller.
Scarlet’s novel focuses on Arthur Montesque, a downtrodden alcoholic and former professional investigator who’s seen happier days. However, one fateful day, he receives a mysterious letter requesting his assistance on a life-changing assignment. The sender, an antiques collector named L.A. Calesanti, wants Montesque to conduct business on his behalf in the small, heavily forested hamlet of Lost Hollow, which, he writes, will feel like “stepping through a portal to the past.” With lucrative compensation provided in advance, Montesque jumps at the opportunity and soon arrives at a forest’s edge after days of traveling on foot and horseback; meanwhile, back at home, his abode mysteriously bursts into flames and burns to the ground. Montesque finally arrives in the town, which features ominous caves, black “Shadowspire” mountains, and superstitious citizens who are terrified of the path into the woods that borders their home. The strange new surroundings seem to play with the investigator’s sense of reality, but they’re also where he discovers that he has hidden powers of his own. In the town, he meets a local barmaid named Vanessa, whom he instantly lusts after, and Scarlet’s heavily detailed descriptions of Montesque’s sexual dalliances (with Vanessa and others) add zest and spice to the novel. In a series of cryptic letters, Montesque is charged with looking into the disappearance of Calesanti’s assistant, who went missing after attempting to locate and purchase an ancient relic. While in the tiny hamlet, Montesque also wants to investigate a vicious forest “beast” called the Morrowen, which he saw during his ride into Lost Hollow. As he and Vanessa become closer, she explains to him that the town is powered by magic, which she calls the “one thing that science will never be able to explain”—and which made the path that he followed into the town suddenly disappear. Banding together with Briar, a local huntsman, they set out to conquer the terrible evil that lives in the woods. However, Scarlet proves to be a highly imaginative author and has much more in store for readers of this serpentine tale of sorcery and wizardry. In one memorable scene, for example, demons reveal a “spectral lens” conduit that they use for transportation, as crackles of black energy snap across Montesque’s vision. Slowly but surely, the protagonist draws closer to solving the mystery of the missing assistant while also fiercely battling creatures lurking in the forest’s shadows—including an enemy that no one saw coming. The author fills this novel’s energetic plot with unexpected twists, and it’s clearly written with seasoned horror-fantasy fans in mind. Scarlet is also quite adept at characterization and ably conjures occult elements as part of the overall worldbuilding. One notable scene involving demons battling a surprisingly powerful Montesque in a dream realm and another involving Calesanti and his daughter are rendered in an especially vivid manner.
A complex and intensely cinematic fantasy debut.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-951237-00-4
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Lonely Lighthouse Publications
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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