An engaging love story that’s relatable, despite the enigmatic forces at play.
A couple’s romance may hinge on otherworldly beings in this supernaturally tinged novel.
Two “ethereal creatures” in human form relax at a cafe in Paris. As one of them is bored, they decide to play a game with two humans—a man and a woman in the New York metropolitan area. The man is an author who teaches a writing class (“Often, his students pitch” their stories, “claiming they aren’t writers. He always responds with the fingerprint argument: perspective is unique. The difference is craft, practice, and the balls to finish”). He has just ended an on-again, off-again relationship, perhaps for the final time. His best friend is an Eastern European expatriate and divorced woman with two kids. The unnamed pals confide in each other and even dish about their dating lives. Introducing sex into their relationship is brand new and not opposed by the pair. When it looks as if they’re officially a couple, the woman worries whether her friend can commit; maybe he’s not yet over his ex. Perhaps, she is merely a diversion. Before apathy sets in, the ethereal beings spice up their game with a “test” to prove whether there’s something profound between the friends or if their love is fleeting. Carlos limits the narrative details in this romance. Names, for example, are largely absent, and certain specifics, like the man’s ex and anything about the woman’s children, remain vague. But their growing closeness offers more than enough fuel for the story. The author deftly captures the allure of a new romance—that exhilarating first kiss and the ensuing days eying a phone for a text or call. It’s likewise entertaining to see the duo’s dating prospects or lack thereof. Male strangers hit on the woman constantly, delivering tributes that rarely seem genuine, and the man gets himself entangled in a casual relationship that he tries gracefully to break off. Meanwhile, the mysterious, nonhuman Parisian entities, who eventually transport to other places, appear intermittently. Whatever they’re planning isn’t clear until the end, though it’s definitely worth the wait.
An engaging love story that’s relatable, despite the enigmatic forces at play.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8218139490
Page Count: 216
Publisher: MACHIAVELLI PRODUCTIONS LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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