Fans of historical fiction will love this one.
A young man sets out on a perilous expedition for the Republic of Texas.
In 1841 Louisiana, surveyor Alexandre LaBranche errantly draws a boundary line that puts many of his father’s slaves on his neighbor’s plantation. Oops! His fed-up father tells him he’s worthless and disowns him. Alexandre leaves home and is introduced to Texian president Mirabeau Lamar. (They weren’t called Texans until statehood.) Having confirmed that the youth can determine latitude and longitude, Lamar offers him $10,000 to map the Texas border up to the source of the Rio Grande, also secretly hoping he’ll find the 300 lost soldiers Lamar had sent to Santa Fe. Off the lad goes in a wagon, but soon two thieves rob him and toss him into a bramble-filled ditch. A free Black woman named Noeme eventually rescues him. She works for Sam Houston, who later succeeds Lamar as president. Various characters disparage Alexandre’s surveying skills and consider him a “plantation dandy” who can measure the Earth by looking at the sun and stars but can’t use a compass. He is a terrific mapmaker, though. His maps show every last building, Mexican soldier, and tortilla press along the Rio Grande in lifelike detail and perspective. The contrast between Alexandre’s professional skills and shortcomings strain believability: “You learned geography…but you didn’t learn which way the wind blows,” Houston tells him. Houston falsely accuses Alexandre of a murder and gives him the choice of either hanging in a gallows or spying on Mexico. The desire to prove himself, make money, and avoid execution all give plenty of motivation to forge ahead. The underlying events in this engaging novel are true. Before statehood, Texas was “the most ill-defended and beleaguered republic in North America” with undefined borders and constant attacks on Anglo settlements like San Antonio. There was indeed a massacre at Hacienda Salado where the 17 prisoners who drew black beans from a jar were executed by a firing squad. There are nice twists, enjoyable main characters, and rich local color. But will Alexandre achieve his goals?
Fans of historical fiction will love this one.Pub Date: March 2, 2025
ISBN: 9798990128965
Page Count: 326
Publisher: Stoney Creek Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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