Though the heroine is very nearly surpassed by the story’s preternatural elements, her anomaly, even among the creatures,...
Wittchen’s debut fantasy, the first in a planned series, follows a teenage girl with the ability to see fairies as she finds her birth father as well as her origin in a world of demons and supernatural beings.
Tempest Laurier knows she’s not a typical 17-year-old: She can see faeries of varying sizes when seemingly no one else can, and she somehow knows that a miasma (“natural energy”) within her adoptive father’s necklace has possessed the man, precipitating his uncharacteristically abusive behavior toward her. When she wanders into the Unseelie Court, the darkest part of the land of Faerie, she encounters Cormac, the Black Knight, who tells her that she’s a halfling and the granddaughter of Marquis, the king of the Unseelie Court. Also, her biological father, she learns, is Kione, the Dark King of the demons. As Tempest slowly develops powers, including the “black flame” that leaves even demons in awe, she doesn’t know who to trust: Cormac is protective of her, but Marquis apparently wants her dead; Kione is keeping secrets from her; and the demons try to convince Tempest that Declan, the boy she’s fallen for, is duplicitous. The author’s novel has a jarring style with sudden transitions among numerous scenes, befitting of Tempest’s aberrant perspective. In a memorable scene, for instance, she stands outside Declan’s condo door as he speaks to other people, and she hears Declan begin a statement that he finishes by sending her a text. In her unnerving visions she sees ghostly figures or creatures that converse with her; sometimes, she sees events, such as a horrific scene with her Pomeranian, Cupcake, that haven’t actually happened. Wittchen fills the pages with fantastical beings beyond faeries and demons—a lycanthrope, a vampire, a witch—few of whom are heavily featured in this story, though they will likely return in a future entry in the series. Tempest may lose a bit of sympathy by succumbing to the immaturity suitable to her age: She slams her bedroom door and rolls her eyes repeatedly, and despite constant threats to her life, she parties quite a lot, usually at a club called the Slaughter House. But the series should give her ample room to grow, and a girl shrewd enough to acknowledge that the reason she quips is to disguise her fear—“Sometimes it’s easier to joke about things then admit that I was scared”—is already on her way.
Though the heroine is very nearly surpassed by the story’s preternatural elements, her anomaly, even among the creatures, will have readers hooked.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494943899
Page Count: 434
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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