Warren Rochelle's Blog - Posts Tagged "john-r-little"
A Review of Secrets/Outcast by John R. Little and Mark Allan Gunnells
Take two talented writers of horror:
Mark Allan Gunnells, whose work includes The Quarry, Tales from the Midnight Shift, and The Summer of Winter, and several other titles,
and John R. Little, the winner of the 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Miranda, and Little by Little and Ursa Major, among other books.
Give them the same prompt: a 19-year-old woman, Karen, is in a graveyard, looking for a particular tombstone. With her, Bobby, a boy about her age, and he is a bit impatient, but he knows she has to make this search. Finally she finds the right grave: “This is the one,” she said. “I found her.”
The assignment: write a story, starting with this prompt.
So begins Secrets/Outcast, Book V in JournalStone’s Doubledown Series. Two very different and engaging stories is the result,
Secrets is aptly named, as the secrets that we know, and how we come to know them, and why, drives this tale. Karen herself has one huge secret: time stops for her, for a while, until she is pulled back into reality. Outside of time, she can go anywhere while the world is frozen in place. She finds herself drawn to the secrets of others, secrets that she uncovers and collects when she is outside of time, such as hidden pornography, a couple pretending to be in love, yet despising each other, and taboo relationships. Karen even founds out her father’s dark, dark secret, a secret that makes her question if she really knew this man.
Karen also finds herself drawn to another who can live, like her, outside of time, Bobby. If the secrets Karen find out are sometime dark, then Bobby is arguably darker. He plays tricks on the stopped. He hurts and humiliates them—some, he even kills, because he can. But he is completely free of constraints and is perhaps the most powerful person Karen has ever known. This power is seductive and Karen finds herself using it. She rescues her sister from an abusive relationship; she punishes those whose secrets hurt others. But, even if they seemingly deserve the punishment—is this what Karen wants to do, play god?
Falling in love with her friend, Bonnie, changes all this—but Bobby is still out there. What will she do if he goes after the woman she loves?
In Outcast, Gunnells has created another outsider, Karen, a first-year student at Furman University in Greenville, SC. After her roommate and high school best friend, Brittany, abandons her for the sake of fitting in, Karen finds herself drawn to the mysterious Bobby who happens to find her at her job in the library. And she finds herself drawn to one of the university’s librarians, Penelope, who helps Karen to understand that witches are real and that Karen has the potential to be a very powerful one. For Karen, this is the beginning of understanding something of what has made her an outsider all her life.
What of Bobby? Karen finds him oddly compelling and attractive and mysterious. She is falling in love with him. But she can’t physically touch him. She can’t kiss him. He won’t let her. Brittany tells Karen someone saw her the other day, talking to a tree. Penelope speaks to her of the power that she could have—and Penelope turns out to be Bobby’s mother. Bobby turns out to be a ghost. If things aren’t complicated and confusing enough, the other witches in Greenville try to intervene and warn Karen Penelope may have more going on than just helping Karen. Did Bobby just happen to wander through the library when they first met? Then there is Jacoby. Is he real? How is it that he sees Bobby?
Can Karen handle all these curve balls life has thrown at her, one after another? Can she find herself? These compelling questions—and engaging characters, dark and light—pull the reader into this tale of love, romantic and abusive and ghosts and power. You see, Penelope wants to find a body for her son and she wants Karen to help her, and Penelope will do just about anything to get her son back. Anything.
The juxtaposition of these two stories, both stories of love, romantic, abusive, obsessive and power, dark, seductive power will keep the reader turning the pages.
Mark Allan Gunnells, whose work includes The Quarry, Tales from the Midnight Shift, and The Summer of Winter, and several other titles,
and John R. Little, the winner of the 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Miranda, and Little by Little and Ursa Major, among other books.
Give them the same prompt: a 19-year-old woman, Karen, is in a graveyard, looking for a particular tombstone. With her, Bobby, a boy about her age, and he is a bit impatient, but he knows she has to make this search. Finally she finds the right grave: “This is the one,” she said. “I found her.”
The assignment: write a story, starting with this prompt.
So begins Secrets/Outcast, Book V in JournalStone’s Doubledown Series. Two very different and engaging stories is the result,
Secrets is aptly named, as the secrets that we know, and how we come to know them, and why, drives this tale. Karen herself has one huge secret: time stops for her, for a while, until she is pulled back into reality. Outside of time, she can go anywhere while the world is frozen in place. She finds herself drawn to the secrets of others, secrets that she uncovers and collects when she is outside of time, such as hidden pornography, a couple pretending to be in love, yet despising each other, and taboo relationships. Karen even founds out her father’s dark, dark secret, a secret that makes her question if she really knew this man.
Karen also finds herself drawn to another who can live, like her, outside of time, Bobby. If the secrets Karen find out are sometime dark, then Bobby is arguably darker. He plays tricks on the stopped. He hurts and humiliates them—some, he even kills, because he can. But he is completely free of constraints and is perhaps the most powerful person Karen has ever known. This power is seductive and Karen finds herself using it. She rescues her sister from an abusive relationship; she punishes those whose secrets hurt others. But, even if they seemingly deserve the punishment—is this what Karen wants to do, play god?
Falling in love with her friend, Bonnie, changes all this—but Bobby is still out there. What will she do if he goes after the woman she loves?
In Outcast, Gunnells has created another outsider, Karen, a first-year student at Furman University in Greenville, SC. After her roommate and high school best friend, Brittany, abandons her for the sake of fitting in, Karen finds herself drawn to the mysterious Bobby who happens to find her at her job in the library. And she finds herself drawn to one of the university’s librarians, Penelope, who helps Karen to understand that witches are real and that Karen has the potential to be a very powerful one. For Karen, this is the beginning of understanding something of what has made her an outsider all her life.
What of Bobby? Karen finds him oddly compelling and attractive and mysterious. She is falling in love with him. But she can’t physically touch him. She can’t kiss him. He won’t let her. Brittany tells Karen someone saw her the other day, talking to a tree. Penelope speaks to her of the power that she could have—and Penelope turns out to be Bobby’s mother. Bobby turns out to be a ghost. If things aren’t complicated and confusing enough, the other witches in Greenville try to intervene and warn Karen Penelope may have more going on than just helping Karen. Did Bobby just happen to wander through the library when they first met? Then there is Jacoby. Is he real? How is it that he sees Bobby?
Can Karen handle all these curve balls life has thrown at her, one after another? Can she find herself? These compelling questions—and engaging characters, dark and light—pull the reader into this tale of love, romantic and abusive and ghosts and power. You see, Penelope wants to find a body for her son and she wants Karen to help her, and Penelope will do just about anything to get her son back. Anything.
The juxtaposition of these two stories, both stories of love, romantic, abusive, obsessive and power, dark, seductive power will keep the reader turning the pages.
