A fun, sometimes over-the-top blend of SF, horror, and fantasy that should satisfy fans of all three.
Connelly takes readers on a wild ride through the near future as humans struggle to survive disaster in this speculative thriller.
An asteroid hits Earth, taking out Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Nevada, creating a “new continental divide” in southern California. Subsequent tremors make California an official “No-Go Zone,” and most residents flee north. But Max Walker, a widower still reeling from the death of his wife, Charlene, remains, alongside his elderly scientist parents, Cathy and Andy, as part of a group of 110 people participating in “Project Z.” Hidden in the canyons of California, this group attempts to discover an antidote to Zworsky’s vaccine—a miracle drug that promised to cure people of all sickness and disease but was discovered to grant some users the ability to fly. Now called Metas, these flying humans consider “Terries” (short for “Terrestrials,” meaning nonflyers) their mortal enemies. When Max becomes an accidental stowaway and winds up at the Metas’ home base in Los Angeles International Airport, he meets Darlene Verity, a Meta who slowly comes to believe that not all Terries are bad. As time runs out to help the Metas (whose life spans are shortened by their condition), Max and Darlene team up to fight enemies on all sides—including “Creepers,” zombielike Metas who are believed to be a product of horrific scientific experimentation: “The Creepers were like ghost figures, as she could not make out their faces, just those piercing eyes underneath those dirty bandages.” An eerie backstory combined with raucous action makes this novel an entertaining romp, with more serious themes of scientific responsibility, loss, and the nature of humanity thrown in for good measure. There are uses of profanity scattered throughout the text, but the novel never dips too heavily into overtly graphic depictions of gore or violence. Quick but steady pacing leads to an ambiguous ending that sets up the forthcoming second installment of the Zworsky’s Children series.
A fun, sometimes over-the-top blend of SF, horror, and fantasy that should satisfy fans of all three.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 399
Publisher: Madness Productions
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© 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.
