Slightly educational, mostly fun.
A twist on disturbing historical events.
Sisters Zuretta and Ruby want to escape their abusive Utahn family, but Ruby manages to leave home first. When her letters abruptly stop coming, Zuretta heads east to Chicago to discover why. The teenager is immediately beset by grifters, but she has plenty of pluck: When police refuse to help her locate Ruby, she finds work as a maid in the hotel where her sister was last employed. That building, the Castle, is an ominous warren of hidden rooms and false doors populated by sinister employees—and the charming Dr. Henry Holmes. Holmes, a real mass murderer active during the Chicago World’s Fair, published writings after his conviction, and excerpts open each chapter. Zuretta’s involvement in the case is fictionalized, but the story’s true origins add suspense and excitement. Zuretta’s dreams of her sister as a moldering, ambulatory corpse don’t quite match the realistic events of the rest of the novel, and certain characters and events (the Pinkerton heir who helps her on her first day in Chicago, a hotel worker whose appearances stop once she’s less useful for the protagonist) are more convenient than is satisfying, but this novel will appeal to readers excited about an account of gruesome historical events steered by an intrepid young woman. The setting seems to include almost exclusively White people, including the main characters.
Slightly educational, mostly fun. (author's note) (Historical thriller. 13-17)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72822-911-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Mesmerizing.
Queer romance, friendship rivalries, and ominous secrets twist together in Lo’s latest enthralling tale.
Chinese-American Jess Wong has known her white best friend, Angie Redmond, since grade school—the problem is she’s loved Angie for nearly as long, unrequited. When Angie begins dating Margot Adams, a wealthy white student at a nearby private school, Jess knows she should be happy that her friend is happy, but as jealousy and suspicion about Margot eat at her instead, her friendship with Angie begins to crack apart. Jess tries to throw herself into her comics art, but even there, themes of loyalty, love, and betrayal arise. As tensions reach their breaking point, a classmate and friend of Margot’s is discovered murdered in the park, and the resulting upheaval and search for a killer sheds light on some harrowing truths about everyone. Lo has delivered an intricate tapestry of narrative, woven in a labyrinthine pattern of secrets and colored with intersecting hues of Chinese-American identity, the dark intensity of relationships, and telltale stains of blood. A sudden (and likely disorienting) shift from Jess’ first-person perspective to a more detached third-person narration serves the practical purpose of providing information; together with police interview transcripts to which Jess couldn’t be privy, it artfully signals to readers that Jess is no longer in control of the story…or the facts.
Mesmerizing. (Thriller. 13-17)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2742-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 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
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