A well-paced puzzler that readers will want to finish in one sitting.
A desperate victim of a hit-and-run scrambles to uncover lost memories and long-buried secrets in this mystery/thriller.
Wong, who previously wrote the novel Swearing Off Stars (2017), hones her craft in a tale of identity, loss, and finding oneself anew. Veronica “Vonny” Kwan wakes up in a small-town Nevada hospital in what she believes to be 2013. She claims to be a recent graduate of New York University and is looking toward a bright future with her best friend, Abby Knowles,at her side. However, sympathetic nurses throw Vonny’s world off its axis when they inform her that it’s 2022, her married name is Veronica Lewis, and she hasn’t spoken to Abby in years. Abby claims that she never wants to speak to Vonny again. When two detectives inform Vonny that her husband, whom she can’t remember, has been murdered and the culprit is still at large, she feels completely lost. Living alone in a towering San Francisco mansion, she has strange dreams (“I am running along a sinuous trail, sweat dripping down both legs and mud caked around my ankles”). As she strives to find out what became of her spouse, she must also solve the mystery of what became of who she used to be. Over the course of this novel, Vonny’s story moves at a quick, graceful pace in confident prose. The use of flashbacks is succinct and will have the effect of keeping readers wholly invested in a fictional world that’s full of twists and subtle clues. Although many of the manipulative villains and well-intentioned allies feel like recognizable types, they are varied and well developed. The author excels at providing clever quips and specific, vivid imagery, which makes for a memorable and enticing read.
A well-paced puzzler that readers will want to finish in one sitting.Pub Date: June 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948051-96-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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