A haunting supernatural thriller blending splattery carnage with creepy derangements of the soul.
San Francisco’s fog conceals madness, murder, and demonic intrigue in this lurid horror novel.
Lizzy Gardner has the perfect San Francisco life, complete with a high-paying job as a wealth manager, a swanky downtown apartment, and a devoted boyfriend named Tom. It all unravels when she has a horrific nightmare about a young woman being disemboweled, only to see news reports the next day about an identical girl who has been found dismembered in Golden Gate Park. Lizzy intuits that the dream and the murder are somehow connected to her brother Dylan, a drifter, dream interpreter, and occasional psych-ward inmate. The runaway junkies whom Dylan hangs out with have been having unsettling visions of a Dark Lady, her ghoulish, corpselike minions, and a giant cat; the apparitions have prompted a rash of overdoses and suicides. A fresh encounter with the Lady’s hypnotic minion sends Lizzy into a nervous breakdown; she starts wandering the streets and has a psychotic episode at work. Dylan takes Lizzy to a prophetess, who clarifies their predicament: Lizzy must allow the Dark Lady to take possession of her body—or Tom will be killed. Anderson’s yarn is a tense, psychological horror story in which the lines between dreams, delusions, and reality blur and otherworldly villainy feeds on characters’ very human sinfulness and guilt. It’s also an eerie portrait of San Francisco, from the sterile Financial District skyscrapers to the seedy Tenderloin. Anderson’s richly atmospheric prose is punctuated by gory violence and horribly vivid evocations of the macabre: “The grin…was so revolting, so smeared-looking. As if her grandmother had been munching on flies, their black bodies caught in her teeth behind her pursed and bloodless lips. There was a cunning hunger in that grin, quivering, vulgar—a hunger for her.” Yikes.
A haunting supernatural thriller blending splattery carnage with creepy derangements of the soul.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781963733013
Page Count: 383
Publisher: Fever Dream Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
