A visceral debut novel set against the splendor of a national treasure.
This thriller follows four college students as a stalker hunts them on the Appalachian Trail.
Jerry Allen, Diane Cain, Linda Baldwin, and Bill Martin are students from Appalachian State University on their semester break. They’ve decided to hike the Appalachian Trail from Tennessee through North Carolina and into Virginia. As a couple, Diane and Bill have hiked sections of the trail before, but lovers Jerry and Linda are new to the experience. The foursome travels without cellphones, though, which proves to be a dangerous mistake: Diane, while relieving herself away from the group, gets sexually assaulted by a stranger. Bill insists on hunting down the perpetrator, even if they must leave the trail for the deeper woods. When they camp for the night, their wilderness-wise stalker toys with them by circling the camp and throwing firecrackers. Eventually, Bill gets separated from his friends; he has a limited knowledge of the land and finite supplies, so the others must decide whether to search for him or abandon him and save themselves. Diane, meanwhile, harbors a secret that could radically change the whole dynamic of the trip. Later, as exhaustion and fear lead to accidental injuries and deadly weather closes in, the students’ faith in God is tested in ways that rarely happen in everyday life. Author House (So Shall You Reap, 2011, etc.) injects his book with plenty of firsthand experience of the Appalachian Trail, bringing the loveliness of the locale to life (“Brilliant flowers of every color...nestled against the background like splatters of fluorescent paint”). He never shies from detailing his characters’ injuries (“Blood and trapped bowel fluid flowed out, soaking his clothes, resulting in a frozen mass against his skin”), though, or the primitive methods they use to treat them. The young people’s biting quips also feel true-to-life (“Reality was a bitch and in this case it had a name—Diane”). They frequently thank God for small miracles, and by the end, love helps redeem them during the horrifying resolution. Ultimately, House delivers an excellent message about building character through trial.
A visceral debut novel set against the splendor of a national treasure.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-68058-038-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Limitless Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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