A captivating tale of a teen torn between two loves and threatened by demons.
A teenager must grapple with an epic battle of good versus evil in this debut YA fantasy.
Seventeen-year-old Emma Duvall and her mother, a surgeon, have always moved a lot, but the teen doesn’t ask too many questions. As Emma approaches her high school graduation, Seattle is feeling like home; it’s the first place the pair has set down roots. Things are great until Emma starts seeing supernatural creatures with shining eyes, but the biggest surprise is her mysterious ability to fight them. During combat, she “drank their power” until her eyes glowed green and they were vanquished. Add in the new boys Rowek Zennett, who is “gorgeous in a dangerous way,” and Blaze Thomas, who is hunting him, and life just got extremely complicated. They each tug Emma’s heart in a different way and seek her allegiance along with her power. It’s unclear whether they want to protect her or merely possess her. When Emma finally gets some answers, an ancient battle between demons and the warriors who seek to eradicate them on Earth is revealed. Either Rowek or Blaze could be a demon, but they only tell stories that suit themselves, so Emma can’t trust anyone, her mother included. Until the origin of Emma’s amazing ability and how her mother’s enigmatic past figures into it become clear, the teen can’t follow her heart toward love or desire. As a first-time author, Matsen already wields impressive worldbuilding chops. In this scintillating series opener, the newly unfurled clash between Rowek and Blaze is smoothly and satisfyingly fleshed out, although the power struggle among different demon generals who command various underlings becomes confusing. There’s also no shortage of romantic tension, at times pushing the boundaries of what some parents will be comfortable with in a YA novel. Emma’s mother is the biggest weakness, feeling one-dimensional and absent, although this is somewhat explained by her duties as a surgeon. But Emma’s burgeoning power and her fantastical love triangle set the stage for an intriguing conflict in the next volume, one that readers will be eagerly anticipating.
A captivating tale of a teen torn between two loves and threatened by demons.Pub Date: May 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-473-47145-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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