by Tim Langdell ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 2017
A delightfully whimsical but somewhat convoluted tale that features otherworldly beings.
A sci-fi novel explores one oddly missed connection.
The Angeli called Nigel is attempting to help a man named Tom Nichols when he abruptly takes Tom out of existence. Before this cataclysmic event, Tom was having lunch with his girlfriend, Jane, and was about to reveal how much he cared for her. Tom was waiting for a sign from the universe to tell Jane his feelings when Nigel, who had been sent to monitor the two, made their lunch table jump and inadvertently caused Tom to vanish. After that incident, Jane fails to remember poor Tom at all. The mishap has the effect of complicating the space-time continuum or, as it is referred to in the story, “All That Is.” As the narrative explains, “Tom and Jane must unite for the sake of All That Is.” Further muddling the situation is the fact that Jane—who is soon taken out of existence as well—and Tom find themselves in a bizarre world populated by Imps, Angeliti (Nigel’s cohorts), Etheriati, and similar creatures, who are essentially humanlike though they are clearly nonhuman. The Cherubithim, for instance, appear as babies the size of men, have tongue-in-cheek names like Dyper Ash, and live for thousands of years. But will the efforts of such figures ever be enough to get Tom and Jane back together again? This strange question is answered through a bizarre romp in a world where it seems just about anything can happen. From flaming food to a talking walking stick, Langdell’s (Virtual Reality Beyond Imagination, 1995, etc.) series opener incorporates a great deal of dreamlike qualities spiked with Douglas Adams–esque humor. There is a book called Cosmic Law that states, among other things, that “the phrase ‘won’t regret it’ actually means ‘will regret it’ 87.36 % of the time.” While it’s not The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Langdell’s novel delivers a playful and unpredictable ride. Take, for instance, the addition of a man named Bill, who had “somehow got across the Veil on his own.” Though readers may feel lost at times among all the eerie and complex episodes, how the story will conclude is very much up in the air until the end.
A delightfully whimsical but somewhat convoluted tale that features otherworldly beings.Pub Date: July 21, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Oxbridge Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019
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
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SEEN & HEARD
by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
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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