Ray takes her time establishing her characters, including the bad guys, and with a rousing, indelible payoff, it’s well...
In Ray’s debut thriller, lives converge at a charity ball, where someone has planned a deadly act of vengeance.
Beatrice Karen “BK” Hartshaw and Trevor Mayhew have both endured troubling childhoods. BK’s mother blamed her for her father leaving; BK’s uncaring stepfather sent her and her older sister to live with their aunt, and afterward, to a private school. Trevor was beaten on a regular basis by his father, Lenny; he and his grandmother, Beverly, tried to escape the cruel man, but Lenny came looking for them. Years later, BK, working at a PR firm, has organized a charity ball and auction sponsored by her (recently) ex-boyfriend, Max, CEO of his own company. But BK is worried: Her best friend, Shelby, has been stalked by a young man who happens to be named Trevor, who, having been jailed for harassing Shelby, is currently roaming free. And BK is completely unaware of another looming danger: Lenny, methodically plotting his revenge against the son who long ago escaped his wrath. The first half of the novel is a series of shorter stories, focusing first on Lenny in high school as he manipulates a pregnant schoolmate, Gail, into marrying him, and then providing the perspectives of a young BK and Trevor. In the prologue, however, Ray wisely opens her bookat the charity ball, where BK is staring at an armed Lenny. The prologue adds suspense to the story as it slowly builds, particularly in the latter half, to this scene and even includes a bit of mystery, when BK considers what a psychic, hired for the event, has warned her of regarding both herself and Shelby. Though Trevor eventually seems to be the villain, readers will find it difficult not to sympathize with him; his abuse at the hands of Lenny is vicious, and Trevor’s mother is helpless, the narrative insinuating that Lenny keeps her docile with drugs. Shelby is equally sympathetic—she is being stalked, after all—and though BK’s life is bearable when compared with Trevor’s, she suffers from anorexia, courtesy of her mother’s degrading remarks about her weight. The romance between BK and Max, even if it starts late in the story, is convincing and captivating, because the young lady’s eating disorder may have an impact on the relationship.
Ray takes her time establishing her characters, including the bad guys, and with a rousing, indelible payoff, it’s well worth it.Pub Date: April 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1935460961
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Barking Rain Press
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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