Murder! Occult! Obsession! The pieces are there, but the drama just…isn’t.
When a young academic is given the opportunity to research esoteric Renaissance art at The Cloisters, she gets caught up in the secrets of the present.
Gifted linguist Ann Stilwell is beyond relieved to escape Walla Walla, where she was born, raised, and where she graduated from college after her father’s tragic death. A summer fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York seems like a heaven-sent opportunity, but when she arrives, she is instead offered a job at The Cloisters, a smaller, more intimate museum. Patrick Roland, the curator, has a fascination with Renaissance occult, a small and specialized field, and Rachel Mondray, another recent college graduate, has been working with him to organize an “exhibition on divination,” including the tarot. Ann’s own niche research neatly complements this topic, but she begins to wonder whether Patrick and Rachel might have more invested in the study of the occult than just their academic brains. As Ann digs into research for the exhibit, she becomes closer and closer to the wealthy, beautiful Rachel. She also finds herself attracted to Leo, the irreverent gardener at The Cloisters who plays in a punk band and grows hallucinogenics to sell to bored housewives. Then one night, Ann, Patrick, and Rachel do a tarot reading, and tragedy ensues. Ann must decide whom to trust—and decide once and for all whether she believes in the power of fate or the burden of free will. Hays sets the stage well for what might have been some truly creepy scenes, but those looking for chills should seek elsewhere. In the end, the plot and characters feel too formulaic and familiar to really surprise. Readers might be better served by seeking out Arturo Pérez-Riverte’s The Club Dumas, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, or Tana French’s The Likeness.
Murder! Occult! Obsession! The pieces are there, but the drama just…isn’t.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-6680-0440-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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