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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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