A claustrophobic, breathlessly effective tale that seems to pave the way for a choose-your-own-murder series.
How many ways can a romantic triangle turn murderous? Let Adamson count, and multiply, the ways.
Mia Banner has left her teaching job in London to follow her longtime boyfriend, Richard Ellis, to the Andalusian village of Val Verde to live in La Casa de la Luz, the house his worthless mother left him in her will. She anticipates some difficulties settling into a neighborhood whose principal attraction is the volunteer organization Desert Shoots, but there’s no way she could have known that Anna Fleming, the photojournalist she meets at an informal gathering, has already had a brief, lusty fling with Rich and plans to continue it under Mia’s unsuspecting eyes. Assigning alternate chapters to Mia and Rich, Adamson details Rich’s empty relationship with Marianne Ellis, the mother who neglected him to embrace the bottle until she drank herself to death, and hints ever more broadly at the traumatic crime in Mia’s childhood from whose shadow she’s struggled to emerge ever since. Rich assures Anna that he’s going to leave Mia for her; when Mia discovers the affair, he assures her that he’s going to send Anna away. Since each of the three leads has ample reason to kill each of the other two, the moment when Adamson finally reveals the identity of the corpse discovered in the opening chapter bids fair to diminish the rising tension. Miraculously, however, the author keeps coming up with new ways to ratchet up the suspense even further until the last line of the last chapter.
A claustrophobic, breathlessly effective tale that seems to pave the way for a choose-your-own-murder series.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781613163733
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Scarlet
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.
Roberts’ latest may move you to tears, or joy, or dread, or all three.
Every summer, John and Cora Fox visit Cora’s mother, Lucy Lannigan, in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky, leaving their children, 12-year-old Thea and 10-year-old Rem, for a two-week taste of heaven. The children love Grammie Lucy far more than John’s snooty family, which looks down on Cora. Lucy, a healer with deep Appalachian roots, loves animals, cooks the best meals, plays musical instruments, and makes soap and candles for her thriving business. Thea—who’s inherited the psychic abilities passed down through the women of Lucy’s family—has vivid magical dreams, one of which becomes a living nightmare when a psychopath robs and murders John and Cora as Thea watches helplessly. Thea’s description of the killer and her ability to see him in real time help the skeptical police catch Ray Riggs, who goes to prison for life. Although Thea and Rem go on to have a wonderful childhood with Grammie, Thea constantly wages a mental battle with Riggs, who tries to use his own psychic abilities to get into her mind. Over the years, Thea uses her imagination to become a game designer while the more business-minded Rem helps manage her career. Thea eventually builds a house near Lucy, where a newly arrived neighbor is her teen crush, singer-songwriter Tyler Brennan. Tyler has his own issues and is protective of his young son but slowly builds a loving relationship with Thea, whose silence about her abilities leads to a devastating misunderstanding. At first Thea tries to keep Riggs locked out of her mind. As her powers grow, she torments him. Finally, she realizes that she must win this battle and destroy him if she’s ever to have peace.
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781250289698
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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