Intertwining narratives of the 13th century add up to less than the sum of their parts. Elinor, gawky daughter of Occitanian lord, nurses a crush on the much older troubadour Bertran; horrified at the prospect of expedient marriage, she runs away disguised as boy joglar. Bertran, meanwhile, carries a dangerous secret; himself a “heretic” Believer, he has witnessed the murder of the Pope’s legate and must carry warnings of impending war to the sympathetic nobles of southern France. As Elinor gradually matures from self-centered pubescent to a self-assured poet, patroness and wife, her tale alternates with Bertran’s perspective on the brutal Albigensian Crusade. This second story is far more compelling, with its serpentine politics and naked ambition masked by piety on every side, but it suffers from a confusing overload of names and places and battles. While Elinor’s adventures are more straightforward, she tends only to react to the choices of her companions and the rush of events. The plots finally intersect, but with less of a climax than a dispirited sputter. Serviceable, but it could have been so much more. (Historical fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59990-367-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage.
Adrian, the youngest of the Montague siblings, sails into tumultuous waters in search of answers about himself, the sudden death of his mother, and her mysterious, cracked spyglass.
On the summer solstice less than a year ago, Caroline Montague fell off a cliff in Aberdeen into the sea. When the Scottish hostel where she was staying sends a box of her left-behind belongings to London, Adrian—an anxious, White nobleman on the cusp of joining Parliament—discovers one of his mother’s most treasured possessions, an antique spyglass. She acquired it when she was the sole survivor of a shipwreck many years earlier. His mother always carried that spyglass with her, but on the day of her death, she had left it behind in her room. Although he never knew its full significance, Adrian is haunted by new questions and is certain the spyglass will lead him to the truth. Once again, Lee crafts an absorbing adventure with dangerous stakes, dynamic character growth, sharp social and political commentary, and a storm of emotion. Inseparable from his external search for answers about his mother, Adrian seeks a solution for himself, an end to his struggle with mental illness—a journey handled with hopeful, gentle honesty that validates the experiences of both good and bad days. Characters from the first two books play significant secondary roles, and the resolution ties up their loose ends. Humorous antics provide a well-measured balance with the heavier themes.
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage. (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-291601-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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