A haunting and intricate religious fantasy that’s a bit too cautious to truly soar.
This thriller pits demons against a dwindling crop of Christian soldiers for control of the world.
Today, Josh Heartley, who had a heart transplant five years ago, turns 10 years old. On his way home with his parents from his grandmother’s house in Morristown, New Jersey, the family’s car is struck by another vehicle on the highway. Josh’s mother, Linda, is crushed in the car while her husband, Benet, is free to examine their unconscious son on the ground. When an 18-wheeler bears down on them, Benet blacks out and wakes up on a stretcher. Investigating the situation is Lt. John Levi, a former undercover cop who must track down William Ridmoore, the vanished hitchhiker who supposedly caused the car accident—and the man whose apartment is the scene of what might be a spontaneous human combustion. Meanwhile, famous psychic Salome Sue Richardson, star of the reality TV show Medium on Call, has apparently lost contact with the spirits who have helped build her career. She’s also been helped by a financial depression that’s sent people flocking to spiritualism—and away from churches, which are now taxed by the IRS. At Memorial Hospital, Dr. Julie Bond decides to study Josh—who has a spine injury—because the boy describes near-death experiences that could prove the existence of the soul. In this sprawling work that collects the first two novels of the World War Spiritual series, Thomas (Cluster, 2015) deftly paints a world in which Christians have been backed into a corner by the belief systems of other cultures—like that of Linda’s ancestral village in Central America—and by demons. These demons, including Karnelo, the “lust-addict spirit,” have been possessing people for hundreds of years, using human tools to instigate everything from the Inquisition to organized pedophilia. Thomas’ prose presents the complex story evocatively, as in the line “Linda’s chest rhythmically lifted and sank, like water in the mighty ocean, which kept its secrets in the dark deep.” But the author shies away from two of Christianity’s largest historical concerns—Islam and homosexuality—missing the chance to engage a larger audience.
A haunting and intricate religious fantasy that’s a bit too cautious to truly soar.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-978271-61-6
Page Count: 636
Publisher: Articity
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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