An immersive and satisfying science fiction thriller.
A woman wakes up in a body not her own in this novel from Moskovitz (A Stand-in for Dying, 2019), the second in his Brink of Life trilogy.
January 2059. After somehow losing consciousness, a woman comes to at a funeral—the funeral of her husband, Arlo Kresky. The only problem? She’s never seen the man said to be her husband. Indeed, when she gets in front of a mirror, she’s never before seen the person looking back at her, either: “It was a pretty face. Some might say exquisite. Her hair was jet black and straight, falling almost to her shoulders….Even after this close inspection, there wasn’t a trace of familiarity. The face in the mirror remained a stranger.” She is apparently the widow Petra Kresky, but she does not associate this beautiful, bruise-covered woman with herself. Is she suffering from amnesia? No, because she does have a sense of her former self and of a woman named Macklyn. She learns from her household android that Petra, despite being 42, is kept at the biological age of 20 by some mysterious technology. She also discovers that the dead Arlo was obsessed with immortality and that Petra has been carrying on an affair with Arlo’s hired biographer, Connor. As she digs into the truth of her identity, she uncovers a truly remarkable web of secrets: a clandestine program to keep the rich young forever, a government spy organization, and an anti-immortality hacker group bent on bringing it all down. Moskovitz tells the story with urgent concision, his prose brisk and clear: “She disembarked and melted quickly into a rush hour crowd, hurrying home or to their chosen entertainment of the evening. The sides of skyscrapers were lit with images from the day’s events. She stopped short in front of one such display that featured an image of Connor rising eight stories high.” This makes the story a quicker and more satisfying read than even the previous volume in the series (which is related to this one but not necessary to have read to understand it). With his thoughtful exploration of the ethical consequences of technology and class division, Moskovitz offers another sci-fi morality tale in the tradition of Philip K. Dick and Black Mirror.
An immersive and satisfying science fiction thriller.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73417-891-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Fluke Tale Productions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2020
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
