This tale delivers a surreal but bumpy journey through different times and places.
A debut supernatural thriller focuses on one woman’s ability to shift space and time.
Jane Takako Wolfsheim has just had a seizure. Jane was discovered on a park bench by a man named Jorge Luis Borges before being whisked away to the hospital. After a lengthy and difficult recovery, Jane comes across the man who saved her. Borges is an antiques dealer (not the Argentine author of the same name) and he insists that their meeting again is no accident. Jane winds up falling in love with Borges and the couple embark on a trip to Japan. It is here that things get strange. Sometime later, Jane wakes up in Costa Rica. Borges insists that her memories of Japan are but a dream. He also tells her they must return to the United States because Jane’s parents have died. As Jane visits the cemetery where her parents are buried, she is surprised by a haiku-spouting Japanese man from the 1600s named Bashō. Bashō has a few things to tell Jane, phrased in such a cryptic way that none of them are particularly useful. Not long afterward, Jane is arrested for the murder of her parents. From here, things only get stranger. While readers may initially expect Jane’s adventure to encompass a few odd aspects (such as a man who shares the name of a famous writer), they may be surprised at the direction Searls’ story takes. Bashō and Borges are merely the tip of the iceberg in a tale that digs into alternate realities and even a complex prophecy. All of these explorations result in a multitude of twists, though the narrative can at times be tedious. For instance, a lengthy backstory for one character provides more information than is needed in a tale initially shrouded in mystery. But in the end, the threads all culminate in a creative take on the fragile nature of reality. Yet some details could have been left to the readers’ imaginations.
This tale delivers a surreal but bumpy journey through different times and places.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68433-512-1
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A frighteningly good debut.
Mysterious guests overstay their welcome in this fresh take on the haunted house trope.
Eve Palmer makes the biggest mistake of her life when there’s a knock on the door from a man who says he grew up in her house. Against her better instincts she invites him and his family inside, but a 15-minute look around turns into a world of trouble when she can’t get them to leave. First the Faust family’s young daughter disappears in the basement; then a storm hits and the roads are blocked, giving them no choice but to spend the night. Soon rooms appear altered, strange odors waft through the house, and a toy chimp from Eve’s childhood seems to be sending her a warning: "Once they’re in, they never leave." Kliewer’s original and extremely scary story gathers elements inspired by authors like Shirley Jackson and classic horror films including Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He’s created a can’t-look-away imaginary world in which people and places aren’t what they appear. Readers will be as shaken as Eve, who fears she’s suffering from delusions when an apparition warns her that the Fausts—and even her partner, Charlie—aren’t who they say they are. Inserted between the book’s chapters are "documents" that lay out evidence collected by conspiracy theorists who believe what’s happening to Eve has nothing to do with delusions. This alternate storyline, written in the style of Reddit—Kliewer’s novel grew out of a novella he posted there—feels jarring at times, as we’re reluctantly pulled away from Eve’s gripping tale. The conspiracy theorists’ creepy posts aren’t quite as hypnotic, but they solidify the plot’s premise and neatly tie up Eve’s predicament. Fans of the surging horror genre will think twice about opening the door when somebody knocks.
A frighteningly good debut.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781982198787
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
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
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