A gripping, entertaining, but sometimes uneven horror story.
A man desperately seeks to escape an old family curse in this novel.
In this tale from Dashner, the author of the Maze Runner series of YA adventures, events turn from SF to psychological horror. The story focuses on single father David Player, who’s trying his best to raise his four kids while continuing to deal with the long shadows of his own childhood trauma. As he drives his children through the South Carolina tobacco fields to their grandfather’s house, the narrative flashes back to his childhood encounters with a vicious, homegrown serial killer named Pee Wee Gaskins. In the present, David and his family finally reach the house. But Dicky, Pee Wee’s son, suddenly appears and proceeds to almost choke to death. The shocked David muses: “This son of a killer said he came to see me. He then choked on his own tongue, for no apparent reason. And my son, who’d never showed us the slightest hint that he knew the first thing about saving a person in such dire straits, had done just that.” Readers gradually come to realize alongside David that Pee Wee’s evil might not be done stalking his family. The author’s long writing experience is a double-edged sword in this novel. On the one hand, he skillfully crafts a riveting narrative; the first-person storytelling will keep readers turning pages. But on the other hand, habits picked up in a career of writing books for teenagers can yield some uneven prose (“There are many who think I’m a murderer,” confesses David early on. “Worse than a murderer. A monster. A monster so monstrous that never before has a world seen such a monstrous monster”) as well as some baffling turns of phrase (“But alas, it’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as the lawyers are wont to say”). It’s bailiffs, not lawyers, who are wont to say this. There’s also a tendency to mimic the tinny, faux folksiness of Stephen King: “People around town said old Pee Wee Gaskins could dig a grave faster than Parson Fincher could say a burial prayer. I wasn’t so sure about that, but figured it’d be a tight race, anyhow.” Still, readers who can overlook these flaws will find a fun, chilling tale here.
A gripping, entertaining, but sometimes uneven horror story.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-62601-608-8
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Riverdale Avenue Books
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.
This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’ half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593199336
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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