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SPIRIT OF PROPHECY

An engrossing tale with nuanced themes and a genuinely complex heroine.

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Hughes delivers a complex case of weighty history, violent trauma, and untold mystery in this debut paranormal thriller.

The supernatural has long been a part of Rosetta Barrett’s life, but that doesn’t make the burden easier to bear. It’s 2021, and she’s a psychic detective who’s found gainful employment and validation with the Elite Paranormal Intelligence Service, but she’s lost plenty to the demands of the job. The secrecy required led to the collapse of her marriage and the loss of custody of her kids, Alice and Edward. That would be more than enough to deal with, but recently, she’s also been having psychic visions that have been keeping her from a good night’s sleep. Although what she sees—a car accident involving a horse—wouldn’t normally be serious enough for Rosetta to commit any real resources to an investigation, she nonetheless pieces together the deadly truth of the visions. Soon, she’s racing to stop a predicted tragedy from occurring. She’s too late to save the victims, but as she investigates and talks to the horse’s owner and event rider, Juliet Jermaine, it becomes clear that the tragedy was no accident. After Rosetta and her team dig deeper, they discover a cycle of violence and revenge that poses a major threat. The novel’s short chapters and tight pacing are its greatest assets, keeping the pages turning and allowing for rapid shifts between characters’ points of view without becoming confusing. The prose never neglects description but tackles it efficiently, couching it in the characters’ natural voices. The very beginning of the novel is somewhat disorienting, as its briskness makes it somewhat difficult to take in the paranormal aspect of this near-future world. Nevertheless, the prose grounds the action quickly, and Rosetta, as a character, connects with readers powerfully and immediately; her anger and sense of duty ring true from the outset. Her struggles with career and family further elevate this exciting, unusual story.

An engrossing tale with nuanced themes and a genuinely complex heroine.

Pub Date: June 11, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-9995867-9-9

Page Count: 360

Publisher: Money-Magnet Global

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

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

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