The atmosphere in Yovanoff’s latest is eerily reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, if only Harper Lee’s Maycomb residents had been given magical families as a focus for their bigotry.
New South Bend is a typical small town, where families have known each other for generations and intolerances simmer just beneath the surface. Tension runs high between the “craft” people, town outcasts because of the magical qualities inherited from their “fiend” ancestors, and the everyday townspeople. Once, years earlier, at a time when the craft ran amok causing chaos, many townspeople burned craft homes and killed craft people, an event that has come to be known as “the reckoning.” Few people realize that a young craft girl, Clementine, was magically bound and left in a trancelike state in the cellar of a burned home. When Fisher, who has more than a touch of craft blood in him, unearths Clementine, now a teenager, history begins to repeat itself. As Fisher and Clementine are drawn to each other, the craft become increasingly unruly. But this time, Clementine, fueled by her pure heart and her unique ability to enhance others’ powers, is determined to control the craft and avoid another bloody confrontation. Yet old habits die hard, and Clementine finds her potential craft allies may prefer revenge for their reckoning.
This beguiling amalgamation of the magical and modern worlds will have readers mesmerized. (Urban fantasy. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59514-638-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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Black is back with another dark tale of Faerie, this one set in Faerie and launching a new trilogy.
Jude—broken, rebuilt, fueled by anger and a sense of powerlessness—has never recovered from watching her adoptive Faerie father murder her parents. Human Jude (whose brown hair curls and whose skin color is never described) both hates and loves Madoc, whose murderous nature is true to his Faerie self and who in his way loves her. Brought up among the Gentry, Jude has never felt at ease, but after a decade, Faerie has become her home despite the constant peril. Black’s latest looks at nature and nurture and spins a tale of court intrigue, bloodshed, and a truly messed-up relationship that might be the saving of Jude and the titular prince, who, like Jude, has been shaped by the cruelties of others. Fierce and observant Jude is utterly unaware of the currents that swirl around her. She fights, plots, even murders enemies, but she must also navigate her relationship with her complex family (human, Faerie, and mixed). This is a heady blend of Faerie lore, high fantasy, and high school drama, dripping with description that brings the dangerous but tempting world of Faerie to life.
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-31027-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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