Freakin’ terrifying.
Alison barely survived a traumatic childhood with her wildly unpredictable, alcoholic mother, Mavis. So it is with no small amount of trepidation that she agrees to bring her mother home to die of cancer.
Mavis’ longtime assistant, Paul, seems agitated when they arrive at Alison’s Vermont farmhouse, but once he leaves, the two women seem to settle into an uneasy truce, and Mavis is sweet and engaging with Alison’s two daughters, especially 6-year-old Olivia. Sixteen-year-old Izzy finds her “creepy,” but soon, she, too, is joining Mavis for tea and interviewing her for a film project. Haunted by childhood memories and disturbed by the rock her mother keeps by her at all times and seems to value above all else, Alison feels like she’s the only one suspicious about her mother’s motives in coming to Vermont, but she can’t deny that the rest of the family has been charmed. Olivia, however, begins to have nightmares, and Mavis taunts Alison with some of her childhood secrets that no one could know. Then Paul—who’s come to visit—runs out of the house after a brief exchange with his employer, telling Alison, “That’s not Mavis.” What follows is chilling, and terrifying, and heartbreakingly terrific horror writing. Alison must unravel her mother’s secrets and begins to realize that her mother’s abuse, perhaps, was in part driven by a desire to protect her. While there is a clear and logical explanation for all the mystery, it’s not one that any other person in Alison’s life can understand or accept, so she finds herself alone, losing the trust of her loved ones as she fights like hell to protect her daughters. While it’s common in horror for secondary characters to cling to a more “realistic” explanation, like mental illness due to trauma, in lieu of accepting evidence of the supernatural, it’s somewhat discouraging to see this trope here. Alison’s strength deserves a better, kick-ass outcome—even if the ending proves how inevitably evil may triumph. Just once: Listen and believe the woman!
Freakin’ terrifying.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781668019061
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
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
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
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