An entertaining, unique spin on the popular holiday that caters to readers of all ages.
Adolescent siblings may be in a position to stop a ruthless mogul from taking Christmas away from Santa Claus in Spremo and Vlcek’s debut adventure tale.
Jenny and little brother Tommy lost their parents at a very young age. Specifics on what happened to Mom and Dad are vague, and the kids spend years bouncing from one guardian to the next. When they believe their latest move will separate them, Jenny and Tommy head north—way north—to see the grandfather they’ve never met in the Arctic. In the same region is Santa, who’s understandably worried. The icy foundation of the North Pole is melting faster than anticipated thanks to the world’s recent climate change. To relocate and protect all the elves, Santa will have to make a deal with Kritch, whose trillion-dollar Kritch Industries produces the bulk of the world’s toys. Kritch only wants Santa’s name, face, and likeness for advertising Kritch Toys. But the businessman owes his overwhelming success and wealth to a powerful crystal orb that he retrieved years ago from a South Pole cave. He may have his contract virtually locked in with Santa, but that doesn’t ease his tension when he learns that someone has swiped the orb. Said artifact somehow winds up in Grandpa’s hands, forcing the elderly man to go on the run with Jenny and Tommy when Kritch sends his minions after them. The sibs, who eventually get an inside look at the heavily fortified Kritch Toy Works facility, do whatever they can to keep the orb from the shady businessman. Much of the charm here lies in portraying the magic of Christmas as something ordinary and routine, best exemplified by the character of Artie, a typical working elf. His biggest dilemma is personal. After overhearing a private meeting on the potential relocation, he inadvertently incites a panic when he tells everyone about it. In the same vein, details on the orb are scarce, and characters scramble to procure it rather than consider its supernatural capability. There is, in contrast, a wonderment with nature. Jenny and Tommy stand astonished by the multitude of stars in the Arctic and the desolation of its landscape: “All that remained was the sound of wind-blown snow. The snow glowed under the light of a single platform light.” Still, the authors inject a healthy dose of ironic humor. Countless parents and children, for example, line up to be the next Spokeskid, the new face of Kritch advertisements. But the role of Spokeskid may be more akin to captivity. Irony likewise surrounds holiday- or winter-related items: a sled is more practical than fun; candy canes entice kids into creepy Kritchland, which maps DNA, fingerprints, etc.; and self-dubbed Hot Chocolate Guy is Kritch’s go-to henchman. The story accommodates mystery (a shadowy figure suddenly appears to help someone) as well as action, including a high-speed snowmobile pursuit. Unanswered questions could indicate a forthcoming sequel, especially regarding the siblings’ parents.
An entertaining, unique spin on the popular holiday that caters to readers of all ages.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 317
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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