Emergence

Name: Emergence
Author: Tyler Brand
ISBN: 978-1-5031-3778-3

by Tyler Brand ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2016

A work of surprising depth even as it delivers the powerful chills and thrills readers expect from a battle with formidable...

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Brand provides a dark tale about a war veteran in this debut sci-fi thriller.

Capt. Alan Wickey is having a bad enough time to begin with. He’s come home from Afghanistan, where he served in the Canadian army. But he hasn’t been able to shake off everything he endured there, no matter how far removed his Vancouver family life is from the danger-filled market squares and unavoidable roadside bombs he still sees in his memory. Sadly, his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, brain injury, and guilt have all but driven his wife, Karen, and son, Teddy, away from him entirely. Alan fights a losing battle with his own mind and vices—and that’s before things get really strange. While in the middle of a particularly foolish, drunken mistake at the edge of Vancouver’s lush wilderness, he’s attacked by something unimaginable and left for dead. He barely survives the run-in with Sentrous, a hunter and part of a tribe of missing link–like creatures who’ve lived out of humanity’s sight for millennia, preying on those least likely to be missed. But just as with his wartime trauma, Alan cannot simply accept his own survival and move on. Instead, he feels driven by the threat, or the challenge. He rallies what troops he can, in the form of the war buddies who, unlike everyone else, believe his story and are willing to pursue peace through superior firepower. Alan, however, doesn’t realize just what going back to war will jeopardize, as the cycle of violence and response puts the people he cares most about at risk and threatens to become a disaster bigger than anyone is prepared for. “When two competing species are both subjected to extreme environmental pressure, a few things can happen.” This line opens the intriguing story proper and speaks to the adventures and complications to come, as the plot ranges from a cat-and-mouse game to a desperate fight for survival. Not only that, but the complex novel blends genres as well, mixing war stories (both during and post-combat) and sci-fi action. Along with a fast pace, dynamic characters, and engaging writing, it’s a very compelling mix.

A work of surprising depth even as it delivers the powerful chills and thrills readers expect from a battle with formidable creatures.

Pub Date: March 18, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5031-3778-3

Page Count: 316

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.