An engaging love story that’s relatable, despite the enigmatic forces at play.
A couple’s romance may hinge on otherworldly beings in this supernaturally tinged novel.
Two “ethereal creatures” in human form relax at a cafe in Paris. As one of them is bored, they decide to play a game with two humans—a man and a woman in the New York metropolitan area. The man is an author who teaches a writing class (“Often, his students pitch” their stories, “claiming they aren’t writers. He always responds with the fingerprint argument: perspective is unique. The difference is craft, practice, and the balls to finish”). He has just ended an on-again, off-again relationship, perhaps for the final time. His best friend is an Eastern European expatriate and divorced woman with two kids. The unnamed pals confide in each other and even dish about their dating lives. Introducing sex into their relationship is brand new and not opposed by the pair. When it looks as if they’re officially a couple, the woman worries whether her friend can commit; maybe he’s not yet over his ex. Perhaps, she is merely a diversion. Before apathy sets in, the ethereal beings spice up their game with a “test” to prove whether there’s something profound between the friends or if their love is fleeting. Carlos limits the narrative details in this romance. Names, for example, are largely absent, and certain specifics, like the man’s ex and anything about the woman’s children, remain vague. But their growing closeness offers more than enough fuel for the story. The author deftly captures the allure of a new romance—that exhilarating first kiss and the ensuing days eying a phone for a text or call. It’s likewise entertaining to see the duo’s dating prospects or lack thereof. Male strangers hit on the woman constantly, delivering tributes that rarely seem genuine, and the man gets himself entangled in a casual relationship that he tries gracefully to break off. Meanwhile, the mysterious, nonhuman Parisian entities, who eventually transport to other places, appear intermittently. Whatever they’re planning isn’t clear until the end, though it’s definitely worth the wait.
An engaging love story that’s relatable, despite the enigmatic forces at play.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8218139490
Page Count: 216
Publisher: MACHIAVELLI PRODUCTIONS LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.
The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas.
The protagonist of the title story, Holly Gibney, is by King’s own admission one of his most beloved characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. The insect-licious proceedings of the last are revisited, most yuckily, while some of King’s favorite conceits turn up: What happens if the dead are never really dead but instead show up generation after generation, occupying different bodies but most certainly exercising their same old mean-spirited voodoo? It won’t please TV journalists to know that the shape-shifting bad guys in that title story just happen to be on-the-ground reporters who turn up at very ugly disasters—and even cause them, albeit many decades apart. Think Jack Torrance in that photo at the end of The Shining, and you’ve got the general idea. “Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same,” King writes, “and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard.” In the careful-what-you-wish-for department, Rat is one of those meta-referential things King enjoys: There are the usual hallucinatory doings, a destiny-altering rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. Perhaps the most troubling story is the first, which may cause iPhone owners to rethink their purchases. King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier.
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.Pub Date: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3797-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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