A spiritual YA adventure that emphasizes finding the light during dark times.
A teenager who’s half angel becomes Lucifer’s prey in this YA fantasy sequel.
Seventeen-year-old Achaia Cohen’s father, Shael, is a legendary Nephilim fighter who won the right to raise his daughter after her human mother died in Transgression (2017). A group of powerful Nephilim disguised as human teenagers, including Emile, Olivier, Amelia, Yellaina, and Noland, help to protect Achaia as she lives her life in New York City. Typically, Nephilim who are “soul mates” unquestioningly bond, but because Achaia is half mortal, she’s free to turn Noland, her doting bodyguard, away. One night, the pair walk the city at night hoping to untangle their unusual relationship, and demons attack them, delivering a warning to Achaia that Lucifer “is coming for you.” Later, the Nephilim Council of Elders summons the teen protectors to Rome for interviews regarding their previous adventure. Strangely, Achaia and Shael aren’t invited. One morning when Achaia’s alone, she’s abducted by Lucifer’s henchmen and wakes up in a frozen prison, where Lucifer, nicknamed “Luc,” reveals his memories as part of a plan to seduce her. Meanwhile, the Council disbands Achaia’s group of protectors, sending them to Chile and France, making a concerted hunt for Achaia seemingly impossible. Ange’s taut, well-paced sequel ratchets up the personal stakes for its main character but also pushes the planet toward annihilation; later, the United States and China begin waging what may be the war to end all wars. Early on, however, Achaia and Noland have adorably awkward moments together that will make readers invested in their potential future together. Ange effectively tilts the story toward darkness during the scene of Achaia’s savage abduction in her kitchen, with a fight that employs a frying pan and hot cooking oil as weapons. Vibrant new characters appear, such as Jude, Luc’s sympathetic son; and Veronica, a weapon-smith. Other characters perish, sharpening the novel’s grim spiritual message: “Achaia realized just how muddy grey could be, and that things were never really black and white.”
A spiritual YA adventure that emphasizes finding the light during dark times.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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