Ferociously feminist body horror with a sentimental heart.
Cursed sex workers find love and seek vengeance.
In 1769, 18-year-old Eleanor runs away to London with her boyfriend, Nicholas, assuming they’ll marry. Instead, after two weeks of passion, Nicholas leaves their lodgings and doesn’t return. Eleanor is searching for him at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens when the elegantly dressed Elizabeth suggests they have dinner. Over an array of delicacies, Eleanor tells Elizabeth her troubles, and “fallen woman” Elizabeth offers Eleanor employment. After having been “kept” for two years by a wealthy sea captain, Elizabeth is opening her own “genteel” establishment—”a sérail, no less”—offering “entertainment and fine company.” For half of what Eleanor earns “entertaining” rich men, Elizabeth will train, clothe, house, and feed her. Eleanor moves into Elizabeth’s opulently furnished King Street rooms, where she meets and develops an immediate affection for fellow new hire Emily. Needing capital, Elizabeth negotiates payment for the three of them to serve as models for wax anatomical Venuses designed to entice medical students through a local anatomist’s studio door. Meanwhile, in the present day, antiques dealer Alys acquires Elizabeth’s wax form, having already secured Eleanor’s and what remains of Emily’s. Preternaturally captivating on their own, legend has it that when united, the three “slashed beauties” assume human form, hunting and killing “any man who has dared to look at them lustfully.” Alys’ family has a “long connection” with the Venuses, and she knows it’s her destiny to destroy them; however, certain diabolical forces will do whatever it takes to stop her. The first-person, present-tense narration alternates between Eleanor and Alys, their stories informing each other while unfolding in tandem. Though the mechanics of the Venuses’ dark magic are at times confusingly vague, Rushby’s prose is lush and vivid, her characters are tragically complex, and Emily and Eleanor’s mutual devotion proves the perfect foil for the macabre tale’s more gruesome elements.
Ferociously feminist body horror with a sentimental heart.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593954645
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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