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ABOVE THE STAR

THE 8TH ISLAND TRILOGY

A twisty tale with an otherworldly setting that readers will happily revisit.

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In this launch of Chute’s (Expecting Sunshine, 2017) fantasy trilogy, a family travels to a bizarre and dangerous parallel world.

Fourteen-year-old Ella Wellsley was only 10 when doctors found a brain tumor at the base of her skull. Six months ago, the growing tumor rendered her incapable of speech. Now, her grandfather Archie has brought Ella and her mom, Tessa, on a vacation cruise through Spain’s Canary Islands. Tessa is still angry at Ella’s father, Arden, who packed some belongings and disappeared two years ago. It turns out that Archie has a hidden agenda with this trip: He hopes to find both his son and a cure for Ella by using information in Arden’s notebooks. Archie tries to make a deal with a yellow-eyed, untrustworthy being named Zeno, but it doesn’t go as expected, and the entire cruise ship is sent through a portal to the magical island of Jarr-Wya. The quest for Ella’s cure temporarily takes a back seat as the Wellsleys and others get mixed up in a conflict between the sandlike Millia; the red, sometimes-fiery Olearon; and the Bangols, who’d banished Zeno, one of their own, to Earth. When the Bangols take Ella captive, Tessa and Archie summon their strength—and a few allies—to bring her home. The characters in Chute’s story exhibit as many virtues as they do flaws; even Tessa and Archie are occasionally selfish despite their noble intentions. This precipitates numerous plot turns as characters surprise one another with a good deed or a sinister turn. Ella provides the voice of the novel with her periodic first-person perspective, and her varying forms of communication—miming, drawing in a sketchbook—make her the most memorable character. Chute details the beauty of Jarr-Wya as well as grotesque moments; at one point, film from Tessa’s eyes “wriggles on her fingers like hyper slugs.” The author’s literary proficiency is complemented by her illustrations. Although the images are supposed to be Ella’s crude ink paintings, their solid shading gives them vibrancy, even in black and white.

A twisty tale with an otherworldly setting that readers will happily revisit.

Pub Date: June 5, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-943006-56-4

Page Count: 360

Publisher: Spark Press

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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NINTH HOUSE

With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...

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Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.

Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.

With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019

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A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.

In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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