A clever and charming time-travel adventure.
With help from a mysterious professor, three intrepid children travel back in time and then must figure out how to get home.
In this first installment of the Snipesville Chronicles, Laing (Look Ahead, Look Back, 2012) introduces three plucky children who accidentally stumble across the ability to travel back in time. Hannah Dias and her brother, Alex, have just moved from San Francisco to the sleepy town of Snipesville, Georgia, and Hannah especially is bored by her new surroundings. On their first day at a new summer camp, they meet Brandon, a young, nerdy African-American kid interested in World War II history. When the three encounter a mysterious professor, they suddenly find themselves in WWII–era London during the Blitz. With occasional help from the professor, who appears to guide them, Hannah, Alex, and Brandon must find a lost boy named George Braithwaite before they can return home; in the meantime, they must quickly adjust to their new surroundings. Laing, herself a history professor, crafts an endearing, clever story that remains coherent despite the perils of a time-travel plot. Her keen eye for historical detail of the period and the struggles the kids face (particularly Brandon) helps bring her setting vividly to life. Moreover, the lessons they learn and the dangers they face ring true as the kids slowly get a sense of life’s difficulties in the era. There are a few instances where dialogue and characterization fall a bit flat; for instance, sulky teenage Hannah has a few too many lines like “Why don’t you mind your own stupid business?” that feel a little canned. Nevertheless, the story’s charms will draw readers in and keep them engrossed until the very end, and the tightly structured narrative ensures that the pieces of the mystery come together well and that each twist feels plausible. This being the first of a series, let’s hope the next installments continue to infuse historical fiction with the same sense of joy and wonder.
A clever and charming time-travel adventure.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2007
ISBN: 978-0979476945
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Confusion Press
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.
After the events of Book of Night (2022), Charlie Hall is forced to hunt down the perpetrator of a terrible massacre.
Charlie Hall is the Hierophant: It’s her job to be tethered to a powerful, independent shadow—a “Blight”— and hunt down other Blights for the Cabals, the heads of their respective shadow-magic specialties. The Cabals use the difficult job of Hierophant as a punishment, but Charlie agreed to take it on so she could be the person tethered to Vince, aka Red, the Blight who posed as a human and ended up dating and falling in love with Charlie. The Cabal leaders used magic to steal the part of Red’s memory that contained his relationship with Charlie, and so Charlie is determined to steal Red’s memories back. And she needs to move fast, because if Red doesn’t remember loving her, he just might be OK with Charlie being killed if it means his own freedom. Meanwhile, Mr. Punch, a terrifying Cabal leader who specializes in using shadow magic to possess other people’s bodies, has a job for Charlie: He wants her to find the culprit behind a terrible massacre that was attributed to a cult. He suspects that the people were actually killed by a Blight, and he doesn’t want the Cabals to face the blowback if the truth becomes public. Mr. Punch could do terrible things to Charlie if she fails, but if she succeeds, he’ll help Charlie and Red be free of the Cabals for good. The sophomore novel in a series is always tough, but this sequel proves that the second book can be even better than the first. Black turns the screws on the magical world she set up in Book 1, creating complicated political motives between Charlie and the Cabal leaders and making the question of what it means for a shadow, like Red, to have their own consciousness more interesting. Veteran con artist Charlie makes some truly brilliant moves, especially toward the end, where the last few chapters have one terrific surprise after the other.
A smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781250812223
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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