Library Journal : Fans of TLC will recognize this family from the television show Jon & Kate Plus Eight, featuring the Gosselin parents, their set of twins, and their younger sextuplets. Here, Kate Gosselin, with the help of her husband, Jon Gosselin, and family friend Beth Carson, shares her perspective on the pregnancies, births, and early months with eight children, infusing her memoir with her faith in God. She relates the family's story from their marriage and infertility to the arrival of their twin girls and, less than four years later, their sextuplet pregnancy. The Gosselins decide against selective reduction, manage a high-risk pregnancy, and produce six miraculously healthy babies. Kate shares the chaos and stress of caring for eight children, focusing on her conflicting emotions, her reliance on God, and the help of family, friends, and volunteers. The book concludes with six lessons Kate learned in the first year about trusting God and receiving his blessings. The Gosselins have shared their story with openness and honesty, and they will engage many readers, especially Christians and fans of their show. Recommended where there is demand.—Erica L. Foley, Clinton-Macomb P.L., Clinton Twp., MI

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Publishers Weekly : Infertility treatments, twins, more infertility treatments, followed by six beating hearts on an ultrasound screen. That sets up the Gosselins' memoir of the exhausting and joyous events surrounding the births of their now famous sextuplets. Those familiar with the TLC program Jon & Kate Plus 8 know how their household runs; now their story comes alive for readers as well. Kate admits, "I was a bit of a control freak," yet also quickly draws on and receives the "peace of God... like a security blanket" through her months in the hospital, Jon's job loss and the impending arrivals. Details such as how they chose names; the sextuplets' birth day of May 10, 2004; and the babies' weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit are fascinating, as are stories of running a household that was perpetually full of volunteers, looked like "baby base camp" and required carefully sequenced nightly bath time. The Gosselins' life is a whirlwind, with their book reflecting the fast-paced, faith-filled approach they take to raising their twins and their miracle sextuplets. (Nov.)

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Publishers Weekly : Singleton expands upon the peculiar conceits of his debut collection, These People Are Us, in these 15 offbeat stories. Set mostly around the little South Carolina backwater of Forty-Five, they take on everything from racism to alcoholism to head lice, with plenty of laughs along the way. A hapless father clumsily tries to use his nine-year-old son to win back his high-school sweetheart (now the boy's teacher) in "Show and Tell," sending him off to school with old love notes, corsages and jewelry he had given her and making the boy pass them off as precious antiques. Another father launches a one-man crusade against a racist newspaper deliverer in "Fossils." "What Slide Rules Can't Measure" details the bizarre lives of denizens of the flea market circuit, while the title story follows an aquarium salesman to a bizarre motivational seminar, where he meets a scarred woman who sells audio books to the blind. "This Itches, Y'all" features a boy who fled youthful ignominy as the star of an educational film on head lice, then returns to his 25th class reunion to find unexpected celebrity. As in the first volume, the narrators tend to be relatively sophisticated men (or boys) who find themselves surrounded by feckless "pallet-heads." Some may find the tone of intellectual superiority condescending, but it's usually tempered by self-deprecation, to wonderful comic effect.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms

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Library Journal : Christopher Snow is back. Fans of Koontz's last offering, Fear Nothing (LJ 2/1/98), will remember Chris as the young victim of XP (xeroderma pigmentosum), a rare and deadly genetic condition that forces him to avoid light. Here, the horrifying tale of Chris's hometown, Moonlight Bay, continues to unfold. Chris and his tight band of friends take up the search for four missing children in this town, where experiments with a genetically engineered retrovirus have begun to turn several local residents into creatures that are less than human. Koontz successfully blends his special brand of suspense from generous measures of mystery, horror, sf, and the techno-thriller genre. But his greatest triumph in this series is the creation of Christopher Snow, a thought-provoking narrator with a facility for surfer-lingo and dark humor who, despite his extreme situation, is an undeniably believable character. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, 10/15/98.]--Nancy McNicol, Hagaman Memorial Lib., East Haven, CT

Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms

Publishers Weekly : No bestselling suspense novelist creates magnetic characters as consistently as Koontz does. In last year's Fear Nothing, this veteran author presented his most memorable figures yet: hero/narrator Christopher Snow, whose genetic affliction forces him to shun light; Chris's sidekick, the ultracool surfing dude Bobby; and ultrasmart dog Orson, a product of scientific experiments gone awry at Fort Wyvern in Chris's coastal California town. In this independent-minded sequel, the second novel of a trilogy, the wonderfully delineated loyalties among these characters and others will win readers' hearts as Koontz plunges his cast into terror. Koontz moves the trilogy's overarching plot in a wholly unexpected direction, pursuing not the experiments that begat Orson but a parallel time-travel/disruption experiment. The gambit feels a bit arbitrary, but it voids the attenuation that plagues many middle volumes. The story begins right after that of Fear Nothing, when Chris learns that children have been abducted to the Fort. Soon Orson is gone as well, but he's replaced smartly by Mungojerrie, the clever cat introduced in volume one. Set mostly at the abandoned Fort, as Chris and company search for the missing kids and dog, the novel proves supernally spooky (and, at times, surprisingly--deliberately--humorous). The suspense soars, culminating in a volcanic if somewhat confusing eruption of action climaxes. A principal villain makes a late appearance, but he's not as menacing as Fear Nothing's fiendish monkey troops, who also show up. Though not as seamlessly constructed as Fear Nothing, this novel stands as vintage Koontz, a rousing crowd-pleaser that recapitulates some of his recurrent themes--the pain of the outsider; the power of love; the threat of scientism--while sturdily continuing a trilogy that's shaping up as his masterwork. Simultaneous BDD audio. (Feb.; on sale 12/29).

Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms

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