This tale delivers a surreal but bumpy journey through different times and places.
A debut supernatural thriller focuses on one woman’s ability to shift space and time.
Jane Takako Wolfsheim has just had a seizure. Jane was discovered on a park bench by a man named Jorge Luis Borges before being whisked away to the hospital. After a lengthy and difficult recovery, Jane comes across the man who saved her. Borges is an antiques dealer (not the Argentine author of the same name) and he insists that their meeting again is no accident. Jane winds up falling in love with Borges and the couple embark on a trip to Japan. It is here that things get strange. Sometime later, Jane wakes up in Costa Rica. Borges insists that her memories of Japan are but a dream. He also tells her they must return to the United States because Jane’s parents have died. As Jane visits the cemetery where her parents are buried, she is surprised by a haiku-spouting Japanese man from the 1600s named Bashō. Bashō has a few things to tell Jane, phrased in such a cryptic way that none of them are particularly useful. Not long afterward, Jane is arrested for the murder of her parents. From here, things only get stranger. While readers may initially expect Jane’s adventure to encompass a few odd aspects (such as a man who shares the name of a famous writer), they may be surprised at the direction Searls’ story takes. Bashō and Borges are merely the tip of the iceberg in a tale that digs into alternate realities and even a complex prophecy. All of these explorations result in a multitude of twists, though the narrative can at times be tedious. For instance, a lengthy backstory for one character provides more information than is needed in a tale initially shrouded in mystery. But in the end, the threads all culminate in a creative take on the fragile nature of reality. Yet some details could have been left to the readers’ imaginations.
This tale delivers a surreal but bumpy journey through different times and places.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68433-512-1
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.
The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas.
The protagonist of the title story, Holly Gibney, is by King’s own admission one of his most beloved characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. The insect-licious proceedings of the last are revisited, most yuckily, while some of King’s favorite conceits turn up: What happens if the dead are never really dead but instead show up generation after generation, occupying different bodies but most certainly exercising their same old mean-spirited voodoo? It won’t please TV journalists to know that the shape-shifting bad guys in that title story just happen to be on-the-ground reporters who turn up at very ugly disasters—and even cause them, albeit many decades apart. Think Jack Torrance in that photo at the end of The Shining, and you’ve got the general idea. “Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same,” King writes, “and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard.” In the careful-what-you-wish-for department, Rat is one of those meta-referential things King enjoys: There are the usual hallucinatory doings, a destiny-altering rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. Perhaps the most troubling story is the first, which may cause iPhone owners to rethink their purchases. King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier.
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.Pub Date: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3797-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
