A great cover, a creepy gardener-cum-madman and a maddeningly clueless, nervous, blond young stepmother (shades of Joan Fontaine) combine a gothic story with a contemporary teen problem novel—but the resulting mystery is far too easily resolved. When her mother dies after a prolonged and devastating illness (chronicled in the first chapter), Nikki’s father marries the young illustrator of a book he is editing. Nikki’s resentment of her new stepmother quickly gives way to grudging protectiveness as Crystal shows herself incapable of self-assertion in the face of Nikki’s bull-headed father. Shortly after the wedding, Crystal inherits a house on the Northern California coast, and over Crystal’s objections, Nikki’s dad insists on moving his family to the beach for the summer. Here, Crystal’s unspoken fear of something dreadful in her past causes alarming nightmares, and Nikki’s impromptu job as secretarial assistant to the gruff owner of a neighboring beach house puts her in proximity to Bruce, the weird resident gardener. As the plot begins to thicken, lightning conveniently burns down the neighboring house—the very house, Crystal finally reveals, where Bruce brutally murdered her entire family when she was a small child. The gardener escapes the fire, however, leaving the reader to wonder about the chilling words Crystal speaks to Nikki in the novel’s last paragraph: “He’ll find you, Nikki,” she says. Though she’s ostensibly talking about Nikki’s budding summer romance with the neighbor’s son, cut short by the fire, the reader can only hope that no sequel is in the works. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-81671-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
Carolina’s life is not a perfect one, but she’s content. She, mother Melanie, and baby sister Trinity go from place to place in the old school bus that Melanie transformed into a home of sorts, with beds and a table and chairs—and no electricity or water, of course. They stop wherever there are opportunities for Melanie to find enough work to pay for food and other necessities; this time, they have taken up residence in a field above the ocean, where Carolina rescues an infant crow and it becomes her fast and only friend. She meets wheelchair-bound Stefan, whose father owns the field on which Carolina’s family is squatting. She and Stefan hit it off, and he introduces her to his mother, who takes an understandable interest in her; her own daughter, Heather, died. When Melanie decides to move to Oregon, Carolina stays behind with Crow, living with Stefan’s family. It’s inevitable that Carolina will change her mind—Melanie is a loving mother and Stefan’s mother has several issues to work out—but Hobbs (Get It While It’s Hot. Or Not., 1996, etc.) handles the path of Carolina’s reasoning well. It’s an unusual story, with interesting characters and a strong plot, and it’s fair to say that Crow steals the show, teaching Carolina how to accept change and to fly in spite of it. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-31153-6
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
The first chapter of this well-written novel may be the best, attracting readers to the story of an only child whose special friend Tem is moving away. In addition to the blow of losing her close friend, Emma learns that her father has taken an engineering job in Turkey, and will be gone for five months. Emma exhibits fiercely childish feelings in attempting to dissuade her father; these feelings begin to make sense, however, as readers learn what Emma is in for. Her mother withdraws, as Emma predicted, to her bed and to television, with no apparent thought for Emma’s well-being. A sudden burst of cheer on her mother’s part results in more bad news for Emma; her mother is joining her father for five weeks, leaving Emma in the care of an elderly aunt. After that unbelievable, cruel twist, Tem all but disappears from the story, which turns to the blossoming of Emma’s artistic talents, through which she makes new friends. The novel elevates a common subject, mostly through Emma’s original observations, and despite the plotting. Although Brokaw drifts into the mundane in order to see Emma’s dilemmas to a conclusion, she often surprises readers with a well-turned phrase. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: April 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90699-7
Page Count: 157
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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