A strong thread of the importance of female friendship makes this adventure rise above Marinda’s bland romance
A fantasy romance influenced by Hindu cosmology concludes its quest with exhaustive thoroughness.
In Sundari, a fantasy land with the flavor of the Indian subcontinent, Marinda spies on her former masters. Marinda was raised as a visha kanya, an assassin so packed with snake venom that she murders with a kiss. She’s now working for the Raja to bring down the followers of the Snake King, who’d almost succeeded in sacrificing Marinda’s beloved baby brother to their god. The machinations of the Naga leave her exhausted. Marinda’s old friend Iyla is here as well, and she also claims to be working for the Naga. Is she double-crossing the Snake King or triple-crossing Marinda? In first-person chapters from both Marinda’s and Iyla’s points of view the two girls navigate their desire to do right, their love for one another, their history of betrayal, and their romances with two handsome young men outside the Naga. Marinda learns to speak with serpents, while Iyla discovers the gods made manifest in human form. Uneven worldbuilding diminishes the coherence of this mostly preindustrial, mostly desi society, and a tidy resolution sweeps away any magical messiness in favor of uncomplicated smooches.
A strong thread of the importance of female friendship makes this adventure rise above Marinda’s bland romance . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-93786-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama
An illegitimate girl who hopes to find her creative passion may be connected to another kingdom’s magical history.
At 10, white, orphaned Brienna was brought to Magnalia House. For the last seven years she’s studied to become an arden, an apprentice passion, with the goal of finding her patron. The arden-sisters study art, dramatics, music, wit, and knowledge; Brienna, who has no true vocation, has eccentrically studied in all the fields. Though she doesn’t truly belong among the talented (and somewhat racially diverse) noble girls of Magnalia House, they are her beloved friends. Perhaps once she’s passioned, she can even act on her romantic feelings for the white knowledge master. But Brienna’s having strange visions lately; could they be ancestral memories of an unknown forbear from the neighboring country? What with romance, jealousy, family drama, betrayals, ancient magical history, and characters with multiple secret identities, there’s a nigh-constant pitch of throbbing…well, passion. A voice is like “tamed thunder,” and hair is like “a stream of silver.” Malapropisms abound (“punctures of laughter”; “her beauty warbled by the mullioned windows”). Oddly, most of the shocking revelations of back story are openly detailed in the lengthy family trees at the novel’s opening.
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-247134-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
This sequel to The Dark Divine (2009) falls into the classic Twilight patterns: a blank slate of a heroine and a reliance on sexual tension and vague presentiments of danger to drive the narrative. Grace Divine is a werewolf now, bitten by her rogue-werewolf brother Jude before he ran off. Her family is falling apart, with her mother increasingly unstable at the loss of a child and her father traveling around the country seeking his lost son. Grace’s only joy is her relationship with her boyfriend Daniel, himself a former werewolf but now disturbingly standoffish. Now Grace is receiving mysterious phone calls that appear to be from her brother and that may be connected to the town’s unsolved rash of vandalism. Though the plot drags, Despain’s fans will be pleased by the introduction of a flannel-clad hottie who is more than ready to comfort Grace during Daniel’s mysterious absences. For those who find a surfeit of rippling muscles and naked pecs to be sufficient for an enjoyable romance. (Paranormal romance. 13-15)
Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60684-058-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Egmont USA
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
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