A rather ordinary historical romance in an extraordinary setting.
A dead warrior sent back to the land of the living confronts betrayal, treason, and romance in Scott’s (Magic of the Nile: Gods of Egypt, 2014, etc.) latest series novel.
Periseneb, an honorable leader in Pharaoh’s army, has been doomed to battle demons in the “gray lands” since his murder some 200 years ago. The lack of a proper burial prevented his spirit from moving into paradise until Ma’at, the goddess of truth, plucks him from his purgatory and offers him a deal: she’ll guarantee his passage into the “duat” if he can help preserve the balance of good and evil as her earthly champion. She provides few details, but Periseneb nonetheless agrees to the 30-day challenge. He’s put back into his home province, just in time to save Neithamun, the firecracker mistress of Heron Marsh, from an assault at the hands of her dastardly neighbor Haqaptah’s men. Haqaptah schemes to keep her estate in debt so that he can one day absorb the land for himself, and with payment due in one month, the clock is ticking. Periseneb interprets the deadline as a divine sign and offers to help her rescue the estate. As they toil side by side on an eleventh-hour push, a romance blossoms between the two. But complicating matters are Periseneb’s personal history at Heron Marsh and a treasonous plot in the province. Scott, who’s clearly done her historical research, paints a vivid ancient Egypt that will set readers’ imaginations ablaze with its detail and complexity. The relatively black-and-white characters, however, don’t quite match the Technicolor setting. Aside from the spunky Neithamun, whose working-girl approach sometimes makes her seem like a modern-day transplant, the many personalities of the story often come off as simplistic. The evolution of Neithamun and Periseneb’s relationship is also conventional, sticking to the tried-and-tested rules of romance writing. But although the story isn’t particularly deep-thinking or inventive, it succeeds as easy-to-read good-versus-evil entertainment thanks to Scott’s masterful worldbuilding.
A rather ordinary historical romance in an extraordinary setting.Pub Date: May 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9962903-0-2
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Jean D. Walker
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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