A top-notch paranormal adventure is supercharged by a far-fetched premise with unexpected verve, emotion, and thrills.
After the discovery of a mysterious map in Greenland, a tormented archaeology assistant and her allies fight a sinister cult trying to recover an ancient Egyptian secret.
A Hollywood screenwriter might pitch this paranormal adventure by Vick (A Phantom Walks Among Us, 2019, etc.) as the “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Meets Indiana Jones,” though heroine Limerick “Ricky” Crowe’s has body art that consists not of a dragon but of a Celtic triskelion, an ancient three-lobed mythological symbol. Ricky left her native Ireland with her sister and widowed mother after the death of her father and subsequently endured a traumatic adolescent rape-mutilation while growing up in troglodyte Alabama. Now an alcoholic introvert, Ricky finds solace in online gaming in her Chicago apartment and in archaeological fieldwork with a local institute. Then her sister Sasha disappears in tandem with a massacre, at a climatology outpost in Greenland, by armed raiders who struck the remote site after the discovery of an ancient map, seemingly of Egyptian origin. The doomed Sasha managed to send the map to Ricky and her research teammates, who are promptly targeted by a ruthless global cult. Elements of Irish folklore and the Old Testament fall into place in Ricky’s bewildered and angry but resourceful mind, and soon she and allies are on an international chase to recover an ancient Egyptian secret of life and death. Escapist beach reads such as Clive Cussler’s Sahara and Iris Johansen’s Storm Cycle have jeep-driven down similarly dusty, artifact-strewn paths, but here the supernatural—not just lost wisdom, treasure, or technology—lies at the center of a conspiracy that has bad guys a step ahead of the heroes and cliffhangers that involve literally hanging from cliffs. Vick keeps his heroine credibly flawed during hideous ordeals and drops surprise after surprise until the end. Lucky encounters with occult-hieroglyphics interpreters in back alleys may be a bit much. But a grand spirit of master storytelling hangs over the novel, and readers will be glad to go along for the ride.
A top-notch paranormal adventure is supercharged by a far-fetched premise with unexpected verve, emotion, and thrills.Pub Date: April 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-957851-02-0
Page Count: 474
Publisher: Penmore Press LLC
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.
Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.
Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593548981
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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