This slim novel invites us to question the narratives we know and has a rewarding payoff, but is slow-moving.
An Israeli expatriate in Los Angeles reconnects with his aunt-by-marriage and returns to Israel, where secrets from the past resurface.
In a strong translation by Kahn-Hoffmann, Liebrecht portrays the connection between a young Micha and Adella, whom he meets for the first time when he's 9 years old and she's 18 and engaged to his favorite uncle. Micha comes from a big, opinionated Iranian Jewish family that looks down on Adella but he befriends her, and when the wedding plans are made, he is chosen to be her bridesman. In fluid prose, Liebrecht describes how Micha gets to know Adella, becomes fascinated with her, and participates in her wedding. As a young teenager, he relocates to Los Angeles with his mother, and then the chronology jumps ahead; Micha is an adult, working as a ghostwriter in Los Angeles, and Adella has reached out after many years to ask him to come to Israel for an unknown reason. Does she want him to ghostwrite her memoir? And who is this new woman? Adella has become Adel, and there is no trace of the timid, marginalized girl he remembers from his childhood. What ensues is a revelation of long-hidden secrets. Micha is in the business of ghostwriting, of crafting narratives from what he is told is true. But Adel's revelations make Micha revise his own memories of her and of his childhood, thus reminding readers to reexamine the stories we tell. The prose is clean and smooth, and Micha's narration transitions seamlessly from the voice of a young boy to the voice of an adult. Quietly intelligent and carefully written and translated, the novel encourages us to consider the relationship between truth and stories. Unfortunately, the narrative drags a little, and the story is not very compelling until its final shocking twist—which almost, but not quite, makes the rest worthwhile.
This slim novel invites us to question the narratives we know and has a rewarding payoff, but is slow-moving.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781609459864
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
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