A playful international romp that never fails to surprise.
A novel focuses on a fantastical global search.
Sackitey presents a 22-year-old man known as Gold Coast Boy. To say that GCB, whose name derives from the former British colony that became Ghana, is a genius would be an understatement. Not only has he invented a “biomolecular submarine” that he uses to traverse the world, he can also casually discuss bioethics, ease the concerns of French airport officials in their own language, and even dazzle opponents in a soccer game. But for all his strengths, GCB cannot find his long-lost friend Ibrahim Mahamadose, aka IBM. And so GCB scours the globe in an adventure that takes him to places as disparate as India and Iowa. Over the course of his odyssey, he manages to fall in love, get married, and meet diverse people with a range of experiences. In Nigeria, he comes across Kofi, Julia, and Irene, three cohorts who happen to have a corpse in their “boneshaker” truck. At the Grand Canyon, GCB meets Americans Dick and Kelly. The couple are more than happy to talk about the time they spent in Africa. But where is IBM? Early in the story, GCB has a staid discussion with his family on such topics as whether or not the Bible condemns genetic engineering. (One character remarks, “Mankind should use God’s freely given genetic gifts to bring salvation to His people while glorifying His holy name.”) But once things get moving, they keep accelerating at a high speed. An encounter with armed Nigerian soldiers; a snowstorm in Minnesota; criminals in Tanzania—there is little that can stop the hero for long. While such an ambitious pace proves refreshing, the whirlwind of activity can leave readers perplexed at times. For example, an event involving an army of green sharks is as peculiar as it sounds without offering much lasting substance. Still, that escapade manages to make some points about the nature of friendship. Even if it seems likely from the get-go that IBM will be found, the fun comes in the journey, not the destination.
A playful international romp that never fails to surprise.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73337-904-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.
An author is targeted by a fan who just can’t let her go.
Arden Bowie has had plenty of tragedy in her life, but now she’s finally on top. After her parents died when she was a teenager, she moved from Brooklyn to Ohio to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. She soon became part of their loving family and grew up to become a writer and bookseller. When her debut novel is published, she meets Dustin Dubecki at her first event. He showers her with praise, asks for writing advice, and wants to take her out for coffee. Arden tells herself he’s just a little awkward, but then he keeps showing up at her local events—and, even stranger, she’s sure she sees him lurking at her event in New York City. When he bursts into her apartment one night and assaults her, Arden’s calm life is shattered. Dustin gets a five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility; Arden spends most of that time rebuilding her sense of stability. Eventually, she moves to Oregon to start a new life where Dustin can never find her. But even though she has a beautiful home, a thriving career, a doting family, new friends, and even a potential love interest in a former cop named Gideon Riley, Arden can’t escape Dustin’s rage when his sentence is finally up. Roberts toggles between Arden’s point of view and Dustin’s, giving the reader occasional glimpses into his extremely twisted mindset. Although Arden’s attempts to escape Dustin are engrossing, the story stalls in the middle when far too many pages are dedicated to Arden purchasing and decorating a house. But the excitement picks back up when Dustin, a truly odious villain, re-enters the story. It’s also satisfying to see Arden grow into someone who refuses to be a victim, even as she deals with horrifying circumstances.
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781250413581
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
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
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