Strange goings-on at an Edwardian country house.
Jones (Small Wars, 2010, etc.) quickly establishes a tension-riddled scenario. Charlotte Torrington Swift is in danger of losing Sterne, the grand manor bought for her by her adoring first husband, who couldn’t afford it and died leaving a pile of debts. Second husband Edward is off to Manchester to try and save Sterne—not that this wins him any favor from petulant Clovis and Emerald, who have never liked their stepfather. Edward will miss Emerald’s 20th birthday party, to which childhood friends Patience and Ernest Sutton have been invited; spoiled but good-natured Emerald worries that the clever, unfashionable siblings will be rudely treated by her ill-tempered brother and their status-obsessed mother. Circumstances become even more unpromising with the arrival of survivors of a terrible crash on the nearby branch line, whom the Great Central Railway informs Charlotte will have to be hosted overnight. There’s something very odd about these passengers, and odder still about Charlie Traversham-Beechers, another survivor and an old acquaintance of Charlotte’s, though she’s clearly alarmed to see him. Traversham-Beechers is invited to the awkward birthday dinner, while housekeeper Florence Trieves struggles to find food for his increasingly rowdy fellow passengers. He uses a self-invented game, Hinds and Hounds, to encourage the airing of everyone’s unpleasant opinions about each other, and the game ends with Traversham-Beechers’ ugly revelations about Charlotte’s past. At this point, what seemed to be a savage comedy of manners takes a 90-degree turn and becomes a supernatural confection. There’s no question about Jones’ skill—the novel is cleverly constructed and written in smooth prose. It’s quite a step down in ambition and moral seriousness, however, from her two previous novels. The nasty climax to Hinds and Hounds, obviously intended to make a statement about the human capacity for evil, has its impact muffled by the deliberately implausible happy ending, modeled on a Shakespearean romance. A peculiar change of pace for this gifted author.
Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-211650-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.
Things are about to get bloody for a group of Charleston housewives.
In 1988, the scariest thing in former nurse Patricia Campbell’s life is showing up to book club, since she hasn’t read the book. It’s hard to get any reading done between raising two kids, Blue and Korey, picking up after her husband, Carter, a psychiatrist, and taking care of her live-in mother-in-law, Miss Mary, who seems to have dementia. It doesn’t help that the books chosen by the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant are just plain boring. But when fellow book-club member Kitty gives Patricia a gloriously trashy true-crime novel, Patricia is instantly hooked, and soon she’s attending a very different kind of book club with Kitty and her friends Grace, Slick, and Maryellen. She has a full plate at home, but Patricia values her new friendships and still longs for a bit of excitement. When James Harris moves in down the street, the women are intrigued. Who is this handsome night owl, and why does Miss Mary insist that she knows him? A series of horrific events stretches Patricia’s nerves and her Southern civility to the breaking point. (A skin-crawling scene involving a horde of rats is a standout.) She just knows James is up to no good, but getting anyone to believe her is a Sisyphean feat. After all, she’s just a housewife. Hendrix juxtaposes the hypnotic mundanity of suburbia (which has a few dark underpinnings of its own) against an insidious evil that has taken root in Patricia’s insular neighborhood. It’s gratifying to see her grow from someone who apologizes for apologizing to a fiercely brave woman determined to do the right thing—hopefully with the help of her friends. Hendrix (We Sold Our Souls, 2018, etc.) cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he’s a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet.
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68369-143-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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