Excitingly illuminates an ancient class of warriors despite a few missteps.
Debut author Graft’s historical novel follows a young, kidnapped nomad in the Middle East.
Near the upper Volga River in 1236, Duyal goes about his regular duties as a Kipchak. The Kipchaks are a migratory people whose lives revolve around the animals they tend. It’s not an easy existence, and it’s made even more difficult by raids from enemies. After a devastating attack by Mongols, Duyal is enslaved and taken from the steppe. His final destination is a citadel in the city of Hisn Kayfa in what is present-day Turkey. The citadel, like Duyal, belongs to a powerful prince named al-Salih Ayyub. The plan is to turn Duyal, along with other captured boys, from wild children of the East into Mamluk warriors. The boys train with swords, lances, and bows. If life on the steppe was hard, life in the citadel is almost unbearable. Many of the boys will fail the difficult training, and some will even die. Those who pass, however, will become fearsome warriors. Will Duyal be among the victorious? That question is answered stage by excruciating stage. The text abounds with evocative portrayals, like that of the city Hisn Kayfa: “Upstream, the blue-muddied river winds its way through irrigated fields of green, the rich foliage eventually tapering to tan.” Many particulars are time-appropriate and interesting; for example, in bow training, Duyal doesn’t jump directly to the massive qaw. He and the other recruits must instead work their way up from smaller weapons like the flexible kabad. However, the spell of an ancient environment sometimes falters with lines of modern dialogue. One novice is asked “What’s your malfunction?” and the reader may be left to wonder whether they hadn’t been transported some 700 years into the future world of Full Metal Jacket. Despite such anachronisms, there is an exciting urgency to Duyal’s survival and the greater question of what he will do should he make it through the program.
Excitingly illuminates an ancient class of warriors despite a few missteps.Pub Date: May 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9996338-5-4
Page Count: 468
Publisher: The Sager Group
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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