A smart, fascinating woman leads this languid, absorbing drama of seduction and lies.
In this novel, a stenographer finds the excitement she craves when she chances on someone’s illicit financial scheme.
Seasoned stenographer Cindy Jack is one of the best in the Eastern U.S. A private firm sends her to transcribe sessions with local government agencies, a boring job for a 29-year-old. She yearns to be “tussled,” though she doesn’t know specifically what that is or even what the word means. It could be she’s looking for Alonzo Prier, the dreamy senior counsel for the Hospital Rate Review Commission. Never mind that he’s married; Cindy tries subtly seducing him when they’re together at HRRC meetings by “striking keys and striking poses.” What catches Alonzo’s attention, however, is her access to transcriptions that may reveal a hospital’s “financial discrepancies” and “extreme irregularities.” When that hospital’s CFO suspects what’s going on, he enlists co-worker Denver Simmons to date Cindy, hoping to distract her from getting close to Alonzo. But will the two men later decide that Cindy knows too much? Rose’s leisurely paced story is driven by a dramatic cast. Cindy, for example, becomes “possessed” by classic Hollywood actor Greta Garbo and sees parallels between their lives, though the intriguing possibility of Garbo’s lesbianism linking them unfortunately leads nowhere. Nevertheless, Cindy is an engaging protagonist. She strives to be more than an invisible stenographer and works to help her older sister recover from her alcoholism. Narrative perspective intermittently shifts to others, most notably Alonzo, whose exciting career sharply contrasts with his drama-free home life. The story picks up considerably in the second half; Denver struggles to keep secrets from everyone (he’s not single). Although there’s no real mystery, a few choices among the cast surprise and culminate in a relatively quiet but gratifying denouement.
A smart, fascinating woman leads this languid, absorbing drama of seduction and lies.Pub Date: June 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66552-944-0
Page Count: 258
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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