Despite the convoluted lineages, a rather sweet relationship novel.
Sentimental, wildly imaginative follow-up to The Onion Girl (2001) finds Jilly Coppercorn abducted into the fairy underworld and still sweet on fiddler Geordie Riddell.
The trouble between humans and the fairy spirits gets underway when fiddler Lizzie Mahone’s car breaks down on the way home from a gig with her band, the Knotted Cord. Attacked by a formidable gang of dwarfish, aggressive men called bogans, she’s rescued by a taciturn native named Grey. Lizzie buries the deer the bogans killed, enraging the fairies on the one hand, but on the other, endearing herself to the deer’s father, Walker. In the town of Newford, where the humans reside, occasional fiddler Geordie is dating a weird seer named Mother Crone who holds forth in the Woodforest Plaza Mall. Geordie’s been best friends with artist Jilly since before the hit-and-run accident that turned her into a Broken Girl in a wheelchair, but that’s as far as it goes. (“ ‘Everybody knows you carry a torch for each other,’ ” complains Jilly’s friend Mona. “ ‘You’re just never single at the same time.’ ”) Jilly breaks up with perfect boyfriend and nurse Daniel, leaving her free to join Geordie on a gig with the Knotted Cord at the Custom House—filling in for Lizzie’s fiddler cousin Siobhan, who broke her wrist in a fall instigated by the vengeful bogans. Abducted during their sleep by fairies and spirited away to the woodlands “in-between,” Lizzie and Jilly shape-shift into their younger selves and encounter all manner of strange creatures, from corbae and cerva to aganesha and crow girls (a glossary might have helped). Joe, wise kindred spirit to Jilly and peacenik among the rival factions, attempts to mollify Queen Tatiana (Mother Crone’s superior), while Jilly’s villainous siblings Del and Raylene make cameo appearances.
Despite the convoluted lineages, a rather sweet relationship novel.Pub Date: May 16, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-31285-9
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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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