by B.A. Vonsik ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 2015
An ambitious, often engaging adventure through time.
Vonsik (Paths of Anguish, 2014) offers the second book in a fantasy series in which ancient and modern times converge.
Graduate student Nikki Ricks is onboard a ship called the Wind Runner, somewhere in the Caribbean. The craft has been traveling at high speeds in an attempt to evade United Nations ships. It’s soon apparent, though, that such maneuvers are for naught. It’s not long before futuristic goons known as Tyr Soldiers board the Wind Runner, looking to seize its strange cargo: two unconscious, seemingly non-human beings from a time long ago, named Rogaan and Aren. Just as all seems lost for Nikki and her fellow passengers, readers are transported back to ancient times—specifically, Rogaan and Aren’s era, which features ferocious beasts and complex civilizations. Here, the narrative picks up where the series’ first installment left off. Rogaan and others are on their way to free their parents from their captors in the city of Farratum. It’s a quest that doesn’t seem likely to succeed—particularly after Rogaan and company become prisoners themselves. There’s a sliver of hope, though, because Rogaan is occasionally capable of feats of great strength and violence. As he’s tested morally and physically, will he be able to save himself and the others from captivity? And what about Aren, a fellow prisoner who frequently sees spinning symbols in his head? Vonsik delivers a story that’s always alive with possibilities, and it keeps readers guessing about how it will link back to Nikki’s future narrative. Although it’s clear from the start that Aren and Rogaan will survive their ordeal, readers will wonder what it is about them that interests a sinister U.N. But even as these unanswered questions create a sense of urgency, some of the dialogue drags things down. Characters often announce their intentions, for example, as when a guard gives the order to imprison the heroes “and leave them be unless they cause more trouble.” The plot’s bigger picture, though, remains intriguing, and readers will be curious about the next installment.
An ambitious, often engaging adventure through time.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-578-17256-9
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Celestial Fury Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by B.A. Vonsik
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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