Kevin Hearne, author of the acclaimed Iron Druid Chronicles, returns with an otherworldly new novella!
Newly widowed and trying to cope with her grief, Winnie Mae Chisholm moves from Tennessee with her teenage son, Pax, to Oregon, hoping the change will let them both heal and move on. She’s warned when buying their new home that the next door neighbor, Mr. Fisher, is a famous recluse and no one has seen him in years, but that’s fine with her—she’s looking for quiet.
She’s not going to get it, however, because when Pax meets the neighbor, he discovers that the reason Mr. Fisher hides from the world is that he isn’t actually from this world. He’s been stranded for decades and he’s trying to get home, and he could really use some help.
Abruptly part of the best-kept secret on the planet, Winnie Mae and Pax have to protect Mr. Fisher from a nosy neighbor who would ruin his work and doom him to die among aliens, but they also have to ask themselves: How far would they go to escape their grief? Would another world be far enough?
Dear Mr. Hearne,
I’ve never read one of your books before but Subterranean Press had this arc and I’ve usually enjoyed the books I’ve read from them so, what the heck it’s a novella and I took a chance.
There’s a lot going on in a small space since it’s a novella. The three main characters are nicely fleshed out and the few minor ones are also well delineated as much as they need to be. I’m trying to avoid too much description as I think readers will be better served learning things as they go. The blurb does a good job but I will admit that I was expecting something a bit different than what I got.
The story has a darker tone than I thought it would and this carries through in multiple ways. Dark things have happened from the (prior to the story start) loss of Winnie Mae’s and Pax’s husband/father (who seemed, from the way they both mourn him, to have been a good man) to the loss of someone else which is discovered as the book progresses. Winnie Mae is also much more questioning and slower to accept Mr. Fisher as the super cool neighbor Pax thinks he is. Mr. Fisher’s got some secrets up his “sleeve” and neither Winnie Mae nor I were overly surprised when they come out. It’s also not surprising what a shit load of money can buy, get you out of, or drive someone to do something nefarious.
I played “let’s guess the outcome” as I read and ended up being correct. There were things that happened that had me shaking my head and thinking, oh sure that’s not going to be noticed or questioned by the nosy neighbor. I laughed at Winnie Mae’s Southern way of delivering her final opinion of this person. Bless her heart. And wow, I didn’t think that a neighborhood close to Portland, in western Oregon was as full of assholes as it would appear to be.
The end is a bit fluid with many possibilities that could eventually occur. I agree with other reviewers that on the whole the story is dark and a bit depressing in the way it depicts current times. Maybe one of the possibilities will save us. I dunno. But I doubt I would reread this. B-
~Jayne
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Jayne
Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break before started back again about 25 years ago. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there’s no TSTL characters and is currently reading more fantasy and SciFi.
