With a riveting villain, diverse cast, and mesmerizing violence, this epic offers plenty of meat on the bone for sword and...
An immortal tyrant and his soul-collecting lieutenant bid to enslave the Western world in Harwood’s debut novel, the first volume in a sword and sorcery saga.
Pieter Thomas, a fisherman in the raw Caribbean dotted with European plantations and slave labor, hurries to his island for the birth of his son. The newborn soon shows miraculous gifts. A valiant but unassuming Dutchman, Pieter doubts the lurid tales surrounding Jeringas Mortifer, evil ruler of much of nearby Venezuela. Mortifer is said to be 2,500 years old, bending thousands to his will by touch and sight alone. But all indeed grows dark as readers meet Mortifer’s chief lieutenant, the Soul Collector. Bringing dread and death, he serves both Mortifer and their higher authority, the dark powers of the supernatural “continuum.” The Collector kills quickly but imprisons the souls of esteemed opponents. Mortifer and the Collector seek two prophetic stone tablets, which tell of a Child of Prophecy who will free the Caribbean of evil. As the plot unfolds, a seer—the Mother of the Third Eye—guides the Dutch fisherman. In a vision, she shows him his newborn son’s stupendous but fraught future. Later, as readers learn the appalling key to Mortifer’s immortality, he orders the Collector to explore an alliance with an island of vampires. In the final pages, the heavens confirm the approach of a cataclysmic conflict. Here and elsewhere, readers will see the influence of other epics—The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the New Testament, and tales of King Herod. But the novel stands well on its own. Impressively, a wide range of characters and settings lives vividly on the page: African slaves, British officers, and Spanish sailors, vulnerable clairvoyants and Romanian bloodsuckers all play their parts. But the Collector of Souls unquestionably leads the pack. Harwood has wisely endowed him with a sense of honor, which, even while he serves a sordid master, humanizes and redeems him.
With a riveting villain, diverse cast, and mesmerizing violence, this epic offers plenty of meat on the bone for sword and sorcery fans.Pub Date: May 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989375009
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Herschel-Floyd Publications
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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