A riveting novel with indelible, sympathetic characters battling vicious bloodsuckers.
In Ross’ supernatural tale, a music-festival weekend turns into a fight for survival when vampires attack.
Alix Summerlin plans to spend three days partying at the Garlic Groove Music Festival in Oregon. She’s with a small group from Nevada State University including her best friend, Zoe Danvers, and her heartbroken ex, Logan Ward, whom Alix dumped just days prior when he brought up marriage. In the midst of loud music, beer, and a bong hit or two, a stranger wearing black catches Alix’s eye. He’s Kade, the “handsomest person” she’s ever seen, and an enigma; he seems indifferent to Alix, a beautiful young woman who’s grown accustomed to guys fawning over her. But the festival crowd suddenly erupts into panic, and people start disappearing. Vampires, Alix and friends quickly learn, have targeted the festival-goers, devouring some and capturing others. The NSU pals, along with Kade and a local named Ethan “Frog” Park (who knows quite a bit about vamps in the area), search for a refuge before they become someone’s next meal. Ross immediately sets the mood for this horror-themed outing as multiple characters ominously warn Alix to be careful. The vibrant cast demonstrates distinctive personalities: Alix is considered an “Ice Queen” for ruthlessly breaking off relationships, Zoe is the group’s much-needed peacekeeper, and Frog provides helpful vampiric intel (like the three “stages” of vampires’ formidability). Punctuated by bursts of action, much of the narrative unfolds like an apocalypse has already hit as the once-blaring festival grows “eerily silent” and Alix and others pass farms with no humans or animals in sight. This approach makes for a slow pace, leaving plenty of time for potential romance between Alix and Kade to develop. Things really pick up in the final act, courtesy of one person’s courage and several plot turns that, while exciting, are also predictable.
A riveting novel with indelible, sympathetic characters battling vicious bloodsuckers.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780988256866
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Ic13 Books
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.
The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas.
The protagonist of the title story, Holly Gibney, is by King’s own admission one of his most beloved characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. The insect-licious proceedings of the last are revisited, most yuckily, while some of King’s favorite conceits turn up: What happens if the dead are never really dead but instead show up generation after generation, occupying different bodies but most certainly exercising their same old mean-spirited voodoo? It won’t please TV journalists to know that the shape-shifting bad guys in that title story just happen to be on-the-ground reporters who turn up at very ugly disasters—and even cause them, albeit many decades apart. Think Jack Torrance in that photo at the end of The Shining, and you’ve got the general idea. “Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same,” King writes, “and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard.” In the careful-what-you-wish-for department, Rat is one of those meta-referential things King enjoys: There are the usual hallucinatory doings, a destiny-altering rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. Perhaps the most troubling story is the first, which may cause iPhone owners to rethink their purchases. King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier.
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.Pub Date: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3797-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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