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
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
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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