A twisty and complex horror novel with a love story at its center.
In Kent’s supernatural thriller, a young woman’s mother and grandmother suddenly disappear, and her investigation takes her to her widowed great aunt's house.
In the year 2000, Edna Mann is an 81-year-old woman who’s been living alone after the death of her husband, Henry Mann, the previous year. Her only companion is a mysteriously long-lived plant, which Henry gave to her when they were children. Henry’s ailing sister, Ruth, and her niece, Grace Gill, live in another house on the same plot of land; Grace thinks Edna should move on from Henry's death and into an assisted living facility. However, Edna refuses to go as long as she believes that her spouse’s spirit lingers, communicating with her through the plant—in part by blossoming in response to her questions. After Ruth and Grace go missing, Grace’s 32-year-old daughter, Noor, visits Edna, looking for answers. Despite Edna’s assertions that there’s nothing to worry about, Noor isn’t convinced; she looks in Edna’s dusty basement for clues and comes upon an old newspaper (headlined “Local Families Demand Answers: Teens Still Missing One Year Later”) and a trove of old letters that just might be the lead she’s looking for. Kent crafts a compelling, nonlinear tale of supernatural horror. Interspersed throughout the novel are scenes from Edna’s life, including her first meeting with Henry, when they were both kids, to their later engagement and marriage; chapters that focus on their daughter, Betty Lou, reveal a strange and tumultuous childhood. The novel’s exploration of generations of complicated mother-daughter relationships is well-done; Noor has a more positive rapport with her mother, but their dynamic provides a window into generational cycles of resentment and misunderstanding. Overall, this book is tense and heartwarming, by turns, as it switches between past domestic bliss and current, frightening reality.
A twisty and complex horror novel with a love story at its center.Pub Date: May 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781590215241
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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