A Stephen King blurb. And, it's declared: a novel of terror. Nick Cutter's readers know what they're in for. And, if there was any doubt, little clues speckle the first few chapters. Readers are "waiting for unknown wickedness". There are shadows coalescing into permanence and logs groaning. There is a sheet
When I was in high school, I read Fran Arrick's Steffie Can't Come Out to Play (1978) more than once. I even wrote a book report on it in the ninth grade, when the assigned reading included J. Meade Falkner's Moonfleet and Robert Westall's The Machine Gunners. (Wanted: female characters.)
Perhaps, like many of us, Alice Munro has read and fully inhabited a story filled with wonders only to be cheated with the last-line revelation that the guts of that story were nothing but a dream. In contrast, "My Mother's Dream" subverts that expectation and begins with the dream, before
Desmond has returned to the island because the prime minister has asked those who went abroad to help rebuild the nation, now that it has gained its independence. Harper Collins Publishers, 2014 Cecil Foster's experience is not unlike Desmond's, but Independence is rooted in the story of a
The story begins with conflict, the televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon. But "Before the Change" considers other conflicts, closer to home, closer to the heart. "What is that expression? It’s as if he’s got a list of offenses both remembered and anticipated and he’s letting it be known how
