An engrossing horror yarn with a lot to say about the real-life challenges of OCD.
In Thorne’s horror novel, a boy battling OCD becomes the target of another kind of unrelenting torture—this one from beyond the grave.
Nine-year-old Timothy Aaron Beard Jr. (called “Tab”) is a sensitive youngster with a powerful imagination, a grumpy older brother, and bickering parents. His entire world begins to implode during a torrential Tennessee flood as Tab hunkers down in the basement to wait out the worst of the storm with his family. The Beards aren’t alone down there for long—a spectral presence manifests in the basement as well. Although unseen by the rest of the family, “Stinkeye Roy” appears to Tab in the subterranean gloom, glaring at him from beneath the bill of a grimy trucker cap with a ghastly set of hollow eye sockets. Things only get worse for young Tab the following day when an angry red welt suddenly emerges on the side of his head. It’s painful and full of nasty puss (“it throbbed, hot to his touch”), and Tab is absolutely terrified to discover there is something spherical—like an eyeball—moving around inside the bump. Thorne’s nearly moment-by-moment narrative effectively captures Tab’s growing feelings of anxiety and dread. The headlong narrative makes for a curiously surreal and off-kilter experience in which neither Tab nor the reader is given any respite from the child’s increasingly horrific ordeal. (The scene in which Tab is finally brought to a doctor to have the uncanny welt removed is a particularly gruesome dermatological nightmare worthy of Stephen King.) As Tab slowly begins to uncover more about “Stinkeye Roy” and the disturbing connection he shared with both of Tab’s parents in life, the protagonist’s increasingly erratic behavior causes those around him to doubt his sanity. It’s a double-dose of preadolescent angst that the author could have explored further had he wanted to go really dark, but mercifully—at least for Tab—Thorne doesn’t overly tighten the screws. In addition to crafting an intriguing narrative, the author is to be applauded for creating a very apt analog to the challenges of OCD.
An engrossing horror yarn with a lot to say about the real-life challenges of OCD.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781938271601
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Lost Hollow Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.
Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.
Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593548981
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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