A ruminative, involving, and somewhat flawed psychological thriller.
Secrets bind several generations of women in this psychological thriller with paranormal elements.
You could say the story begins in 1962 in Savannah with best friends Marge and Dotty and the dark secret they come to share when they exact revenge on a violent man. Or it starts years before that with Marge’s own mother and the difficult decision she makes. But it is decades in the future when the storylines truly coalesce, when troubled artist Kevan Copeland, who’s disturbed by memory loss and the recent death of her grandmother, crosses paths with Nathan Hill, a man who dotes on and works for his aging godmother. Kevan’s return to her grandmother’s birthplace is full of resentment and hatred; it dredges up memories of Kevan’s violent father who physically and emotionally abused her and their entire family. The only friends she could count on growing up were her beloved Gammie Frances and her best friend, Beth, who accompanies her on her return journey. Back from Gammie’s funeral, Kevan starts to uncover long-buried secrets involving an old, decrepit property left to her—a house she used to visit with her grandmother. Nathan’s story is also full of tragedy; his younger sister has been missing for decades. As Nathan’s and Kevan’s tales merge, memories resurface, visions of a young girl start to haunt Kevan, and Nathan’s godmother’s own secrets add to the drama. Wright’s rich psychological thriller dabbles in the supernatural and features multiple narrators and plotlines set in the past and the present. The author explores generational trauma and questions the nature of evil: Are people born evil and can they inherit their personalities from an abusive parent? It’s a harrowing woman-centric story, with horrific, graphic sexual and physical violence. And while the answer to the mystery at its core is unsurprising and reliant on trivial details, the book is less about solving a cold case and more about thoughtfully exploring the ramifications of that case on the lives of multiple characters.
A ruminative, involving, and somewhat flawed psychological thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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