All the chops of an action-packed horror tale.
Gunhus delivers a taut supernatural thriller with his first novel.
After causing a car accident that killed a little girl, Jack Tremont abandoned his fast-paced career and relocated his family from Orange County, Calif., to Prescott City, Md. He planned to devote more time to parenting his own little girls, Becky and Sarah, while his wife, Lauren, works as a surgeon. When a psychopath named Nate Huckley tries to kidnap Sarah at a rest stop, the encounter ends in a frightening car chase that leaves Huckley in a coma. Jack is certain he saw a tied-up girl fall out of Huckley’s trunk during the crash, but the local police insist otherwise. Afterward, Sarah seems to hear Huckley speaking to her from his hospital room. Jack becomes convinced his daughter’s life is in danger, but no one believes him—not his best friend, Max; not Sherriff Janney; and not the hospital’s psychiatrist, Dr. Moran. Only Native American, ex–special forces operative Joseph Lonetree seems to share Jack’s “delusion.” Turns out several prominent citizens of Prescott City hide an ancient, evil secret, and when Nate Huckley wakes from his coma, there will be no stopping him from taking Sarah. Readers will sympathize with Jack and Lauren living through every parent’s worst nightmare: the inability to protect one’s child. Jack’s plight moves beyond desperation when the police won’t help, and almost everyone he knows and trusts is against him. Gunhus wisely lets readers in on certain secrets before Jack and Lauren are privy to them, while hiding others until the last moment. The novel further builds tension by following many characters via an omniscient point of view. After an especially exciting scene, the narrative will suddenly pivot to follow the action elsewhere, pursuing another crescendo. Though the ancient evil revealed at the end of the book is not particularly original, the powerful Nate Huckley terrifies, and the assorted cast of human antagonists adds to the white-knuckle tension.
All the chops of an action-packed horror tale.Pub Date: May 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9884259-8-9
Page Count: 435
Publisher: Seven Guns Press
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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