A young heroine copes with bizarre dreams in a surprisingly fresh paranormal romance.
This debut YA novel, the first installment in a series, follows an adopted teenager who moves to Alabama.
Jessica Delaney is accustomed to relocating at a moment’s notice, whenever neighbors find out a family secret. But the most recent move exudes an air of semi-permanence; the clan settles in Credence, Alabama, Jessica’s adoptive mother’s hometown. And her mom has a teaching position, not like the Waffle House waitress job she held in Atlanta. Moreover, Jessica lives next door to her aunt and her two cousins, Pade and Bailey. Both 15, Jessica and Bailey quickly become fast friends, with Bailey encouraging Jessica’s interest in her popular quarterback brother, Pade. Worried that the “ick” cousin factor is a bit strong, despite the fact she’s adopted, Jessica denies her attraction, particularly because it elicits the jealousy of bully Tosh Henley. Jessica also feels an immediate strong kinship with fellow new student Chase Pearson, although she suspects he and his teacher-mother are hiding something, even while he and Bailey become romantic quickly. Jessica’s concern that her father is concealing a recurrence of his cancer adds even more stress to her typical teenage angst, amplified by a typically bad adolescent decision that has life-changing consequences. While she experiences increasingly strange dreams related to her early childhood and adoption, a tragedy threatens her tenuous newfound security in Credence. Heavy-handed foreshadowing at the outset of this novel by engineer and native Alabamian Bolick sets the reader up for a far more ominous back story than Jessica’s forgotten early childhood. But the Delaneys’ decision to flee in the darkness of night seems unwarranted. Indeed, a few red herrings remain unresolved—Jessica’s parents’ insistence that everyone know she’s adopted, for example—whether by design or accident. Also unexplained is why her parents alter Jessica’s physical appearance, in light of their openness concerning her adoption. Despite these unanswered questions and a generally excessive emotional intensity (perhaps well-suited to a YA tale), this book remains an enjoyable page-turner that should leave readers eager to discover whether the promised sequel ties up all the loose ends.
A young heroine copes with bizarre dreams in a surprisingly fresh paranormal romance.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-946089-01-4
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Dirt Road Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
While it fails to reinvent the genre, this action-packed ride through a grim but fascinating world should delight fans of...
A power-hungry government controls the populace through music, and one young woman accepts the formidable task of saving her family and helping to kick-start a revolution in this dystopian YA adventure.
Hanson’s debut novel, the first in a planned trilogy, takes place in the walled-off, steampunk city of Revinia, where all the inhabitants have devices called Singers implanted in their ears at birth. The machines ensure obedience to Revinia’s ruler, The Conductor, by transmitting a form of mental and emotional control called The Music. The heroine, Ronja, has been branded a Mutt, the lowest rung on the social ladder. She works as a driver on the underground train system, struggling to keep her ailing mother and two young cousins afloat. Destiny comes calling when she accepts a courier’s job, delivering a mysterious package to a member of an underground enclave of freedom fighters known as The Anthem. Among them, she learns, “Everything you have ever felt besides strict loyalty—love of a partner, hate of an enemy, terror, excitement, anxiety—all are muted by The Music. Every time your passions spike, they are beat down. You have lived your life shackled to a weightless iron ball.” Freed from her Singer, Ronja joins forces with Roark, one of the leaders of the Resistance, to convince her family to join the group and thwart The Conductor’s plan to unleash an even more crippling form of The Music upon the citizens of Revinia. The central premise of music as a mechanism of control works well here, and the plot moves at a snappy pace, introducing distinctive new characters nimbly throughout while adding shades of detail to more familiar ones. Ronja’s journey to adapt to a life as a rebel fighter while negotiating the repressed memories that emerge following the removal of her Singer is captivating and memorable. Although the protagonist’s evolution from guttersnipe to superhero in the novel’s last quarter feels like quite a sudden leap, it makes for supremely fun reading.
While it fails to reinvent the genre, this action-packed ride through a grim but fascinating world should delight fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent and leave many waiting impatiently for the sequel.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-56983-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Calida Lux Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Exciting, well-written, and thoughtfully humane, this YA adventure should win many fans.
A teenage boy from Kashmir embarks on a quest to retrieve powerful objects for the elephant-headed god Ganesha in this debut fantasy tale.
YA fantasy novels based on Christian, Norse, Celtic, or Greco-Roman sources are legion, from the Narnia books to the Percy Jackson series. Less easy to find are stories drawing on Hindu myth and religion—a gap that this book helps fill. Fourteen-year-old Tarun Sharma lives in Srinigar, in politically unstable Kashmir, with his older brother, mother, and father, who is Kashmir’s chief minister. On the closing day of a festival celebrating the four-armed deity Ganesha, rebels set off a bomb among the revelers, then kidnap Tarun and his mother. The culprits’ truck crashes in the mountains; Tarun escapes, finding his way to a cave. Waiting for him is Ganesha, who needs Tarun’s help to journey to the Veiled Lands and regain three stolen, hidden mystical objects: the deity’s sacred ax, rope, and broken tusk. Recovering them will restore the god’s powers, reunite Tarun’s family, and “end the civil war both inside the Veiled Lands and in Kashmir.” As Tarun faces down dangers and difficulties, he gains new and powerful abilities, earning a place in the continuing fight against evil. Gaur writes a rousing, well-paced adventure story. Though the structure is familiar—a quest giver, three tasks, coming-of-age—in Gaur’s hands, it never feels stale. The tasks provide excellent settings for Tarun to test his wits and courage, show his mettle, and learn more of the Veiled Lands. In Candeuil, for example, Tarun notices the mountain city’s many carved rams’ heads: “Images of bighorn sheep had even been placed on every tenth cobblestone that lined the edge of the roadway. It gave the city an artistic unity.” More than that, the cobblestones turn out to help Tarun in his search. The novel’s ecumenical spirit is generous and intriguing, with hints of a worldwide (not India-specific) battle going on, such as a teenage girl’s mission to recover objects stolen from Gitche Manitou, the Algonquian Great Spirit.
Exciting, well-written, and thoughtfully humane, this YA adventure should win many fans.Pub Date: April 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-66378-3
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Rohit Gaur Studios
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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