Bright, brave characters star in this exhilarating tale of magic and mystical creatures.
An orphan witchling struggles with school bullies and the likelihood that the mother she’s never known betrayed her coven in the launch of Adams’ (The Santa Thief, 2017, etc.) YA fantasy series.
Like all 9-year-olds in the realm of Orkney, Abigail begins her training in witchery at Tarkana Witch Academy. Friends are hard to come by, especially as Endera, daughter of powerful High Witch Melistra, targets Abigail for ridicule. But Abigail fortunately befriends Hugo Suppermill, a scientist-in-training at the Balfin School for Boys. The two are together—outside of their respective schools—when Abigail first uses witchfire. Though she no longer needs to worry that she’s a magicless “glitch-witch,” Abigail is perplexed by her blue witchfire—everyone else’s is emerald-green. She and Hugo soon learn that this unique color could mean she’s the daughter of Lissandra, a Tarkana witch and reputed coven traitor. With Endera using spells (courtesy of Melistra’s spellbook) against Abigail, it’s hard enough for Abigail to avoid expulsion from the academy. But in the swamps outside of Tarkana Fortress, Abigail will face menacing creatures, such as the giant, wolflike viken, while resisting a new, insistent voice in her head that’s trying to turn her toward dark magic. Adams’ entertaining novel is a prequel to her previous series, also set in Orkney. As in her earlier novels, this series’ first installment is rich in Norse mythology, including references to Thor and Asgard. But it’s the main characters that truly boost the narrative. Abigail and Hugo are particularly strong, two devoted pals who seemingly take turns saving one another. The author’s chiseled prose and speedy pace are complemented by Stroh’s (The Raven God, 2017) sharp illustrations, which create memorable images, most notably pigtailed Abigail in a defiant stance. While subplots are resolved, series arcs are likewise established; Abigail, for example, may be part of a dark prophecy with the threat of war—another tie to Adams’ preceding series.
Bright, brave characters star in this exhilarating tale of magic and mystical creatures.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-943006-77-9
Page Count: 216
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
PERSPECTIVES
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
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