A brainy, irresistible hero braves captivity to protect his family in this riveting tale.
In this novel, a Congolese teen uses his intelligence to survive among a group of vicious kidnappers that strong-arm children into becoming soldiers.
Lemba Adula and his family share a happy life in the modest village of Zange in Congo. The bright 15-year-old’s tinkering with electronics such as TVs and radios earns him the name “The Fix-It Boy.” Sadly, the Purification Army threatens Zange’s peaceful existence. These armed men force children to murder their own parents before involuntarily joining the “Purifiers.” While the villagers hide from the Purifiers during a raid on Zange, they fear the sinister group will return. Lemba and his twin sister, Josiane, feel the only way to keep their parents safe is by leaving home. They find work in Congo’s modernized capital city of Kinshasa—Josiane sings, and Lemba makes money with his computer skills. Unexpectedly, his drone-piloting aptitude catches the eyes of Purifiers, who abduct him. He has no choice but to help the group attack its enemies (often innocents) via drone assaults, especially when it uses his parents as leverage. Lemba’s predicament only turns more dire when he learns that Josiane has vanished. In this gripping story, Rothman delivers an immensely appealing young protagonist whose brisk, first-person narration teems with colorful details. Lemba describes a video game joystick as “a distant cousin of my third-hand rifle” and rubs shoulders with a street hustler that has “a built-in GPS for sleaze.” Though Lemba is unquestionably at the mercy of his captors, his adeptness at nearly everything he does makes his plight somewhat less harrowing; he even masters jujitsu from YouTube videos. Meanwhile, there are mere glimpses of the hardships that others suffer, including Josiane. Readers will nevertheless cheer Lemba as he faces off against muscular, AK-47–loving Purifiers brandishing monikers like “Demon Killer.”
A brainy, irresistible hero braves captivity to protect his family in this riveting tale.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-98518-180-7
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 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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