by Welcome Cole ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
This urban fantasy’s got a quick wit and a thick mood.
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Cole’s noir fantasy sees an assassin turn against those who pay him while preparing the ultimate revenge.
In Old Detroit City, Diego Valerius Vega kills criminals. The city’s evil Masterminds pay him well to take “unwanted garbage off the street.” His rage traces back to a campground in Montana where, at age 9, he witnessed his mother’s violent death at the hands of the one currently known as his Arch Nemesis. Within a week, the end of a 20-year cycle will reopen the Rift and return this Monster to the campground. Diego has been living only to avenge his mother, but according to junkie Billy Gums, something’s happened to Bess Smith, a prostitute Diego has sworn to protect. Billy eventually reveals that Bess had been working a Supervillain’s private party when things got rough. Diego and his partner, Berny Duende, check the girl’s apartment to no avail. The heroes pay one of her neighbors, the keen-eared Eleanor, to call if Bess returns. Then they head to a strip club run by Frannie, the woman who took in Diego after his mother’s murder. The crime fighters learn that Oliver Brighton (of the infamous Brighton boys) and his gang pummeled Bess. Diego hopes to find Bess and settle up with Oliver before his showdown with his Arch Nemesis in Montana. Fortunately, the duo has unusual skills. Diego can shape-shift and Berny has visions prompted by certain smells, but neither anticipates the tempest fate has in store. Though Cole’s (The Burden of Memory, 2016, etc.) latest may seem like a straightforward urban fantasy, it dives deeper into the characters’ psychologies than readers may expect. Berny, the narrator, is tortured by memories of the enigmatic Whitecoats who gave him powers when they “opened that hidden door to [his] skull and flipped on their secret switches.” Diego, a successful albeit murderous riff on Batman, uses flames, smoke, and claws to dole out justice. Yet Cole winks at the strict superhero dynamics that fans love to dissect, like the exact nature of the bats and red spiders with which Diego assaults criminals (“They descend…like the breath of God”). Instead he focuses on pulpy atmospherics, crafting startling visual moments and prose that revel in depravity (“Her left iris looks like a blue gem resting on a bed of red velvet”). Cole scales back the roaming dialogue that flavored his previous works but unleashes Berny’s bristly commentary: “The air reeks of sulfur and despair and hopelessness.” The narrator wonders whether Diego can “save the ones you love” and still “suckle the breast of Vengeance.” Such flamboyantly noirish lines put him in good company with Frank Miller, artist and writer of the Sin City graphic novels. Overall, Cole remembers to ground Old Detroit as a human place, like when an “old couple” feverishly makes out in Frannie’s club. Only in the grim finale is the book’s title explained, as he pushes his characters toward their least expected destinies.
This urban fantasy’s got a quick wit and a thick mood.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 293
Publisher: Caelstone Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2016
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
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New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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