An often satisfying blood bath of a debut but one in need of a stronger edit.
This horror debut finds a vampire coven at odds over the fate of two adopted, enigmatic members.
Redheaded twins Lukas and Tristen appear to be no more than 9 years old, but they’re actually adult vampires filled with mature yearnings. One evening at Maverick Manor, vampire-coven leader Jak Maverick calls a meeting. The twins attend, as do Jak’s siblings, Zachariah, Jaqueline, and Maliki. When Jak announces his plan to officially induct the twins into the coven, Maliki objects, stating that the other clans will punish them for breaking the “cardinal rule” of “enlisting” children. In fact, the twins’ true origins are known only to Jak, who protects the Maverick legacy against the vengeful Summerset coven. After Jak castigates Maliki over his disagreement, Maliki travels to neighboring Dantmore and the Peterson Manor that he oversees. Along with his seductive subordinate, Veronica, he plans to trick a rogue group of vampires into attacking the Mavericks during the twins’ induction. This may be easier said than done, though, as the seemingly gentle Lukas and the moody Tristen are both capable of ferocious violence. In this romance-tinged debut, King evokes the Victorian goriness of Anne Rice’s vampire novels. The Maverick family dynamic is the author’s strongest suit, especially as Lukas comes to realize his love for Jaqueline; after a peck on the cheek, King describes him feeling “where her lips had touched his skin. It was almost warm there.” Splatter devotees will be entranced by the detailed maulings and mutilations, as when one vampire “lapped at the blood spewing out” of her victim and had “shining red spilling over her chin and bosom in a grisly geyser.” Hypnotic as King’s fantasy is, though, reality frequently intrudes in the form of awkward grammar and misused words (“His mental state in that day had been as a seven year old, and upon sight of the blood, he’d began to panic”). Still, an active, twisty plot keeps the pages turning.
An often satisfying blood bath of a debut but one in need of a stronger edit.Pub Date: March 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5246-8491-4
Page Count: 324
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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