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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"There is no health in me, father", December 30, 2008
Teenage machinations reach their devilish, cold and sticky fingers into the present in this terrifying melodrama where a shamed priest is forced to exact revenge after a lifetime of betrayal, and where three women must ultimately face the one lie upon which they have built their lives. Bitter, unsentimental, unforgiving, - and at times devastatingly violent - Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts is a portrait of Roxanne, Del and Alice whose deception is their only real talent. As young and vulnerable girls, all three are immediately in thrall to the handsome Cuban, Father Romero when he arrives to teach at their Catholic school, Our Lady of the Hills. But it is Roxanne who is most determined to act out her sexual fantasies with the attractive priest. When the girls suddenly conspire against him, Father Romero is cast out, forced to live on the fringes of society, consumed by the burdens of his sins. Even as he remains angst-riddled over his fall from grace, he finds comfort in the slave religion of Santeria and its dark rituals of revenge. Yet still Romero remains obsessed with Roxanne, the unleashing of all of the closeted passions late one night transforming his existence forever. Meanwhile, the girls grow older, becoming successful members of Cincinnati society, but their apparent affluence and success hides a severe dysfunction, in part brought about by the secrets they've kept hidden along with all of the manipulative games they once played at Our Lady of the Hills. For years Alice has been obsessed with having a child with her dentist husband Thad, but Thad is unhappy and has fallen into an affair with his assistant Amber who also happens to be carrying his child. For her part, Roxanne is now an artist specializing in weird sculptures of birds, living on the fringes of the social page society. Work and art are the only things that mean anything to Roxanne. Lost in the past, Roxanne's dilemma is her rapidly fracturing relationship with Alice and her inability to pull Del back from the brink and the darkness she feels is closing in on her. In the meantime, the poor and dependable Del is always trying just a little too hard as she aches to be the flawless suburban wife and the budding socialite, married to the loving Jock with their perfect little daughter Amber. The decent into madness for all of these characters begins with a sudden suicide. Alice begins to drift into a bizarre self-obsession even as she falls into despair over Thad's relationship with Amber. Thad is slipping away and Alice powerless to do anything about it and she convinced he doesn't love her anymore because of what she couldn't give him. When Amber's no-good brother appears back in town, the drugged-out and tattooed Dillon, it is clear that this group of people will be plagued by unfinished business. It is Dillon's befriending of the cruel Varik, an arrangement based on mutual need, that fuels much of the hatred and vitriol that follows as the narrative accelerates towards an ever-increasing mayhem. Permeated with the soaring shadows of danger and menace, and also truly nasty characters, the novel is full of avenging angels and demons. Ultimately, Thad and Amber, Del, Alice and Roxanne all become the sad collateral damage of the psychopathic Varik who in turn seems to be the personification of evil and darkness itself. The novel is a devastatingly bleak portrayal of the nature of desire and of the murky world of revenge and the price we pay for believing in "sin" along with the sometimes futile attempts to recapture past pleasures. Ultimately Romero is bought back into the lives of Alice, Del and Roxanne, afflicted with the temptation born of flesh and mind, his soul in such a desperate state while physically he begins to be eaten away by the sins he had once committed as well as the ones now being committed by Varik. The characters all inevitably begin to spiral out of control, culminating in Alice's descent into complete madness, her toughness collapsing into vulnerability, leaving her with nothing to cling to as she begins to take her fury out on Thad and then on Amber. It's indeed a bleak and brutal vision as everyone seems to spiral through a world of naked fantasy, self-delusion and even murder. Meanwhile, Varik is intent to mold Romero's history entirely for his own use. Set in a wintry and bleak Cincinnati, the pages are constantly imbued with an eerily gothic atmosphere, similarly compelling and horrific, the book is absolutely impossible to put down until, in a flurry of anxiety, the final pages are exhaustively turned. Mike Leonard 2008.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satan is My Motor, January 16, 2009
I am reluctant to reveal this novel's surprises, but suffice it to say they are just icing on the cake that is Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts, a novel well acquainted not just with good and evil, but also with everything deliciously in between, including the good time evil can be, and the evil that attaches to the practice of goodness. Novel by novel, Laura Benedict is proving herself the new master of the supernatural thriller, a genre much in need of a new master. I suspect we'll be seeing Mr. Lonely Hearts at the movies before too long, so my recommendation would be you buy your copy now, and enjoy the pleasure of being first to the big time party.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Chilling, Riveting Read!, December 30, 2008
CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS by Laura Benedict is a supernatural suspense, a genre that I only touch lightly here at Fantasy Debut. Usually, I like heroic tales of high adventure, which this book is decidedly not. But I loved it anyway. I couldn't put it down. CALLING is a complex tale about three women, Alice, Roxanne and Del. Alice is the ultimate follower--she would do anything that her hero, Roxanne, says. Roxanne relishes this power, and like all power, it corrupts her. Del is Roxanne's supportive best friend. And Roxanne is the only thing that keeps the three of them together. The story starts when they are thirteen-year-old girls. Roxanne cooks up a ritual--a spell--that will bring them a boyfriend. Del thinks they're just playing. Alice knows they're not. Jump ahead about twenty years to a very unpleasant character, a young man named Dillon. Dillon has just had a car accident with a well-dressed man with an unusual name--Verick. It turns out that Dillon's sister is Thad's lover. Who is Thad? Thad is Alice's husband. And Verick has targeted Dillon for a reason. The whole book is like this. All these little connections that don't become obvious until many pages later. It was like trying to trace a spider's web. Not just any spider--a black widow. Which spins a web that looks like nothing more than a tangle of silk. And then we have Romero, who turns out to be a former priest. Who turns out to have been a teacher where young Alice, Roxanne and Del went to school. And we have the sin that drew them all together years ago. And another sin that brings them together once again, years later. One thing interesting about the horror genre is that it is not afraid to work with Christian elements. This novel has many Christian elements, unapologetically presented. It also has elements of Santeria, which is a blend of Christian saint worship and West African religious traditions. Satan is a character in this novel, and he is absolutely chilling. CALLING is about a deal with the devil--and not the sort of deal you might suspect. And it doesn't have the sort of punishments you might expect. Not all of the sinners die--and not all of the good characters live. CALLING is not for the faint of heart. It is not a happy book. I would have preferred that there not be so many deaths at the end, but the author knew when to stop. I expected another death, but he lived. The author may take some heat for underage sex here--underage sex with an adult man--but I think she handled it well. But there is a hero by the end after all-someone I never expected. Bravo for him. It was great. This is the sort of novel that I like to read again in order to find answers that eluded me the first time. It's one for the keeper shelf.
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