An enjoyable experiment that almost works.
Three new stories about Uhtred, protagonist of Cornwell’s Last Kingdom series, each preceded by historical background material and followed by recipes.
Uhtred of Bebbanburg looks back as an old man on some of his adventures in the ninth century as Englaland went through its “long and brutal” coalescence into the kingdom of England. At age 8, Uhtred is already hearing his father tell him he is useless if he cannot fight. But the wee lad must also trap eels from the local creek, because his father loves to eat them. When the child is ambushed and robbed of his catch by other children, he must fight his enemy with a wooden sword. The stories are light on plot, serving mostly as vehicles to show what people ate. Cornwell and his collaborator, Suzanne Pollak, who crafted the recipes based on Anglo-Saxon fare, clearly enjoyed themselves researching and writing this unusual hybrid of history, fiction, and cookbook. Pork chops with apples sounds tasty, but do you really, really want a two-page recipe for eel pie? Or for fermented shredded turnip? The historical background chapters offer plenty of interesting nuggets; for example, the fact that people generally drank ale because it was safer than water. Few characters other than Uhtred get much development, but his pungent narration offers plenty of meat. By the time of his reminiscences, he has long since become a confirmed pagan, but he recalls that as a boy he was “scared into a belief in the nailed god because [he] knew no better.” Asked at one point if King Alfred should be declared a saint, he sardonically replies that “as a young man Alfred went through the kitchen maids like a hot seax through butter! He even had a bastard son by one of them”—Uhtred himself. The concept of showing what people ate a thousand years ago is appealing, but adding detailed recipes (for example, “Preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF/gas 7” to roast fennel just right) would seem to limit the book’s audience drastically. The stories themselves need to be more eventful and provide greater challenges for Uhtred; the historical background would work better if it were woven into the fiction rather than unloaded in stand-alone sections. That said, Cornwell’s prose is a pleasure to read, and the food facts are fun.
An enjoyable experiment that almost works.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780063219366
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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