A charming story for those who enjoy a quick, action-packed, romantic fairy tale.
A quirky romantic novella about a reformed ex-con and the enterprising young woman who helps him rediscover his self-worth.
In her second full-length work of fiction (Wrong Place, Wrong Time, 2013), Jacobs tells a sweet tale of love and redemption. The book opens as Emet First confides to his employer, Eden Rose, that he has asked a woman on a date for the first time in almost a decade. The reader quickly learns that nine years earlier, Emet was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence in the Massachusetts correctional system. The narrator makes clear that despite his criminal record, Emet is a stand-up guy who simply fell victim to the accumulation of several unfortunate events. Unfortunately, Emet’s confidence has plummeted as a result of his prison time, and he needs Eden Rose to continually remind him of his self-worth. He worries that as soon as he reveals his past to Mercey Finch, his prospective date, she will run for the hills. With Eden Rose’s encouragement, Emet attempts to properly woo Mercey. It soon becomes apparent that she has some skeletons of her own, including a drug-addicted brother who seems determined to make trouble for his sister and anyone in her life. Emet realizes that he may be in a position to help Mercey and that perhaps he isn’t beyond personal salvation after all. The author manages to cram all of the book’s main action into a three-day period without overwhelming the plot or stalling the pace. Although the story takes place in Massachusetts, Jacobs includes very few details that ground the reader in a specific place and instead seems to purposefully create Anytown, USA. Through the inclusion of many whimsical and quirky details, like a homeless magician and his doting wife who act as taste testers for the cafe’s new desserts, Jacobs creates an enchanting world.
A charming story for those who enjoy a quick, action-packed, romantic fairy tale.Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Linden Tree Press
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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