An evocative reimagining of the Romeo and Juliet story set amid the catastrophic collapse of a religious cult.
Young lovers struggle to overcome the powerful forces working to separate them.
Inspired by the events surrounding the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, Johnston’s second novel is a fast-moving and emotionally sophisticated account of the dangers of religious extremism and the tender story of two teenagers caught up in the tragedy that ensues when sectarianism collides with the larger world. Not long after 14-year-old Jaye Carroll and her mother move in early 1993 from California to the millenarian community near Waco controlled by Perry Cullen—known to his followers as “the Lamb”—she meets her contemporary, Roy Moreland, son of the second-generation county sheriff, at a gun show. Jaye is smart, self-aware, and under no illusions about Cullen’s true motivations, while Roy is mainly smitten to discover his first true love. In the early days, relations between Cullen and the surrounding community are peaceful, if coolly distant, but as suspicions grow that he’s accumulating a massive arsenal while sexually abusing young women under the guise of faith, the apocalyptic clash for which the Lamb has been preparing his followers gradually becomes inevitable. The brief chapters that alternate between Jaye’s and Roy’s points of view heighten this rising tension. Interspersed with their narrative are excerpts from a podcast three decades later that features interviews with surviving cult members, law enforcement officials, and others familiar with the tragedy at the ranch. Johnston adeptly shifts between mundane moments and episodes of vivid drama, culminating in the assault on Cullen’s compound that rapidly turns nightmarish for both sides. Even as the bullets fly, a protracted standoff ensues, and the novel moves toward its devastating climax, he keeps his deeply sympathetic protagonists clearly in focus. He also gracefully summons images of the rugged Texas countryside that provides the setting for a novel that beautifully evokes “the hubris, the naivete, the irrationality of love.”
An evocative reimagining of the Romeo and Juliet story set amid the catastrophic collapse of a religious cult.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780399590122
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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