A lightweight but competent sci-fi thriller.
Williams (Bohemian Grove, 2013), in the second installment of her conspiracy thriller trilogy, offers a familiar story of aliens and cover-ups.
Carter Robinson is a young woman who’s not fully human. She’s a descendant of an alien race called the Anunnaki, who hail from the legendary planet Nibiru. For centuries, a powerful, ruthless organization known as the Vaticates has hidden the Anunnaki’s existence. They seek to defend the global religious establishment, which could be irrevocably shattered if the Anunnaki and their role in human history became known to the public. Carter is now the last connection between humanity and the Anunnaki, and so the Vaticates seek to destroy her at any cost. To forestall this, and help free mankind from the scourge of the Vaticates’ power, Carter undertakes a dangerous global journey across the United States to Machu Picchu, Peru, and on to Egypt. She’s aided in her journey by two men, Jack and William, as she risks her life to reach the Sun Gate—an interdimensional communication link that she can use to contact the Anunnaki. The novel is generally entertaining, if somewhat insubstantial, and has strong overtones of both New-Age ideas and conspiracy theories. The style is reminiscent of globe-trotting best-sellers of the 1970s, but the prose is occasionally unpolished or florid (“She felt the anger rolling off him and seeping into her pores”). However, the storytelling is clear and well-paced, and it delivers a story about “real-world” paranormal phenomena in a manner that casual readers may find believable enough. Some readers may be troubled by the novel’s internal cosmology, due to its use of “Vaticates” for its evil conspiracy; on the other hand, a vast number of existing conspiracy thrillers have already pressed religious organizations into villainous service, and this book likely won’t be the last.
A lightweight but competent sci-fi thriller.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615877075
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Half-Light Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2013
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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