Tag: Simon & Schuster

Helen Phillips’ The Need

On By upstateasbIn Fiction, Horror, Literary Fiction, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Psychological ThrillerLeave a comment

Helen Phillips, this novel left me reeling.  So real it could be yesterday in my own kitchen, but then so utterly, devastatingly surreal.  Is it alternate realities, or a frazzled mother’s mind unraveling into madness, or is it a wicked human plot?  Or is it creepy with the supernatural and spooky portals to other planes?  Are the children going to die, or are they already dead?   What it is…….is a consideration, a contemplation, if you will, of a mother’s love, so fierce and so fraught with its intensity and its burden.   Tiny Ben and lively Viv (a masterpiece, the most fully realized fictional four-year-old ever), the warm funk of children sleeping, their unremitting needs, tantrums, vomit, Cheerios, yes, and the bone-deep fear of it all.   But make no mistake.  This is not a horror story.  It is a human story.  Helen Phillips, your talent is frightening.

Readers, make haste to your local bookstore (support the independents, please!) to pick this one up on July 9 from Simon & Schuster.  Or to pre-order from Amazon.com, click here: The Need

Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Simon & Schuster via NetGalley. I would like to thank the publisher and the author for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

Dave Robicheaux Returns: The New Iberia Blues

On By upstateasbIn Fiction, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Southern LiteratureLeave a comment

Been hanging out in the Delta with my friend Dave Robichaux.  I don’t know how old Dave actually is now (two hundred three or so?), but he’s still kicking butt, breaking hearts and doing his own yardwork at his peaceful Cajun cottage on the bayou.  No matter.  For the creator of this all-time great detective series, I’ll willingly suspend any disbelief.  The man is a writer.  He can tell a story and write up a storm.

You do know James Lee Burke, don’t you?   If you don’t or you think he’s mass market dross ‘cause he’s on every drugstore rack, get over it and get on with it.  If you’re a returning devotee like me, New Iberia Blues is a good place to jump back in.  If you’re a devotee-to-be, start here or anywhere, or, if you want, go back to where it all began with The Neon Rain.  You will, anyway.   Feel the soft bayou breezes through the window screen, fluttering the curtains just before the storm.

Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Simon & Schuster via NetGalley. I would like to thank the publisher and the author for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed herein are my own.