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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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