The Regional Office Is Under Attack!

February 1, 2016
Gonzales, already the author of an excellent story collection (The Miniature Wife), offers an intricate, if frustrating, debut novel about a subterranean superhero organization under attack by its own rogue operatives. Split between characters on both sides of the ambush—Rose, hoping to overthrow the Regional Office, and Sarah, bound to protect—the narrative not only bounces between perspectives in short, propelling chapters, but also pinballs in time, revealing, amid the chaos, the history of the clandestine Manhattan-based society, which recruits young women with extraordinary powers to protect the world from terrors unseen by average citizens. Tucked a mile underground (beneath an office dealing in luxury getaways for the rich and famous), these women train and receive assignments from people like the charming Henry, and founding leaders Mr. Niles and the mysterious Oyemi, but when an internal rift finds Henry at odds with his superiors, he organizes a revolt. Gonzales writes with an abundance of imagination, riffing on comic book and pop culture plot lines and characters while adding his own unique perspective. The novel is not as satisfying as his short stories, and it occasionally feels overextended, but there are moments of brilliance. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

January 15, 2016
A clash of swords, spells, and wills erupts in an upper Manhattan office building under assault by well-armed mercenaries. A dense mythology threatens to undermine this frenetic action novel by award-winning short story writer Gonzales (The Miniature Wife, 2013), but the author just manages to wobble to the end of a novel rife with paranormal forces, violence, and revenge. Much of the exposition comes from selections from a nonfiction history of "The Regional Office," a shadowy organization operating under the cover of an extreme-travel concierge service for wealthy clients. The firm's equally murky mission is to protect the world from evil forces using Oracles seemingly plucked wholesale from Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report" and homegrown female assassins who wouldn't be out of place in The Matrix. The action of the assault centers on two women: Rose, who leads a team of traitorous operatives in attacking the venerable institution, and agency executive Sarah, who fiercely defends her office with speed, strength, and a badass mechanical arm. There's also something of a love story buried beneath all the chaos, involving Rose's mentor, Henry, and the woman for whom he abandons his allegiance to the Regional Office. But stripped down to its essentials, the novel is a hyperkinetic sci-fi set piece along the lines of Die Hard seeded with paranormal elements cribbed from half a dozen other franchises and the absent-parent grudges that fuel any number of teen novels. At times, the book struggles to regain its brisk pace as Gonzales plumbs flashbacks, interludes, and the conveniently parallel history of the Regional Office to flesh out characters, back story, and motives. Nevertheless, genre enthusiasts will love the spooky cyberpunk spirit at play here, and resolute readers will be rewarded with an unexpected ending that ratchets up the action long after the Regional Office has been abandoned. A surprisingly erudite bit of sci-fi that throws in everything but the kitchen sink.

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Starred review from April 15, 2016
You might want to get a firm grip on your socks before cracking open this one; otherwise, Gonzales is likely to knock them off. It's very difficult to categorize this mind-bending novel. Is it comedy? Science fiction? Thriller? Spoof? Whatever it is, it's pure excitement. The story involves a shadowy organization called the Regional Office, described by its mission statement as a barrier of last resort between the survival of the Planet and the amassing forces of Darkness; as the book opens, the Regional Office is being attacked by those very forces. As the mayhem progresses, the focus zooms in on two women: Rose, who's leading the attack, and Sarah, who's fighting for her life defending the Regional Office (even as her colleagues are dying around her). The story jumps back and forth in time, showing us how Rose and Sarah became the women they are today: Rose is a trained assassin, Sarah is a potential killing machine with a cybernetic arm. The prose is lively and self-aware (the author clearly knows his story is way over the top and has fun with it for that very reason); meanwhile, though, the action is pretty much nonstop, and there's a thread of melancholy running throughoutRose and Sarah might have been ordinary young women if certain events, and the machinations of highly placed individuals who saw them as weapons, had not intervened. All in all, a brilliant genre-blender.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2016

In a world where evil villains run corporate organizations to hatch and execute dastardly plans using the most cutting-edge technology and magics, only one organization is capable of saving the universe. The Regional Office, run by the quite-normal Mr. Niles and super-magicked Oyemi, employs all-seeing Oracles (think the film Minority Report) and a group of superpowered female assassins to combat the rising darkness. There is a traitor in the Regional Office, however, who assists in a full-on assault that will challenge the balance of good vs. evil. This debut novel is a nonstop action fest peppered with pop-culture references, explosions, and karate-esque fight scenes that would make Chuck Norris proud. The plotline can be confusing owing to the narrative changing among the characters, and their differing perceptions of reality, but the action is captivating. Gonzales retains the fantastical qualities introduced in his award-winning story collection, The Miniature Wife, with a few more robots thrown in. VERDICT Fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Austin Grossman will blast through this quick and fun read. [See Prepub Alert, 10/12/15.]--Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2015

Grissom's The Kitchen House, a surprise New York Times best seller, featured an orphaned Irish immigrant caught between her masters at an antebellum Virginia plantation and the slaves to whose community she can never belong. This stand-alone follow-up features the master of the plantation, Jamie Pyke, also the son of a slave, who has fled to Philadelphia and is passing as a wealthy white silversmith. When he takes a risky trip down South to rescue a servant kidnapped into slavery, he loses his home, business, and upper-crust lover and courts death in the Great Dismal Swamp. With a national tour.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2015

To keep everyone safe, the Regional Office fields a team of crack assassins. But now it's under an attack led by a newbie assassin recruited by an Office malcontent. Gonzales's debut collection, The Miniature Wife, won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, so expect literary tone and intent within the sf framework.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.