A vigorous and immersive vampire tale set against the twilight of the Romanovs.
An alternative history horror novel reimagines the fall of the Romanovs.
In December 1916, members of the Russian imperial family are prisoners in their own palace as the country teeters on the brink of revolution. The empress Alexandra and her son, Alexei, are plagued by a mysterious disease that causes them to crave blood and abhor sunlight. Alexei is visited in his sleep by “the shadow man,” who bids him to kill his father, Czar Nicholas. Meanwhile, an apocalyptic cult called the Khlysts has been appearing in St. Petersburg in growing numbers—and rumor has it that its members include some close to the imperial family. A strannik, or religious pilgrim, named Grigori Rasputin arrives in the city on a train from Bucharest carrying no papers or baggage. He has returned to oversee a venture he began long ago with the kidnapping of Alexandra—a plan of great consequence to Rasputin and his coven of vampires. St. Petersburg coroner Rurik Kozlov is convinced that the murdered bodies passing through his lab are the work of the Sleepwalker, a serial killer operating in Romania two decades earlier, though the local authorities are unwilling to admit as much. Rurik knows that there has been a hunt for evidence of Desmodus draculae—the god of the Khlysts—for years. In Rurik’s quest to stop the evil force, he finds an ally in Prince Felix Yusupov, the loving uncle of Alexei. If they fail, it is not only the Romanovs who will suffer, but all of Russia—and maybe the world. Gage’s prose is well calibrated for this Gothic series opener, blending imperial courtliness with vampire grisliness. “You will see I am a man of truth when your carriage crosses the Liteyny Bridge and continues up Bolshoy Sampsonievskiy,” Rasputin warns two aristocratic sisters upon meeting them. “Far outside of Saint Petersburg there is a cabin in the woods where your murderers await to hack you to bits.” There are a few moments when the book’s violence slides into poor taste, but on the whole, the story is a highly satisfying merging of horror and political milieus, wringing a bit of fun—and a whole lot of blood—out of one of the most chaotic and tragic periods of modern history.
A vigorous and immersive vampire tale set against the twilight of the Romanovs.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-62713-7
Page Count: 438
Publisher: KDK 12, Inc
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
