An exciting, entertaining series companion.
A prince replaced by a double must reclaim his identity.
The crown prince of Akram, Javan Samad Najafai of the house of Kadar, has spent the past 10 years at Milisatria Academy fulfilling his mother’s dying wish. In his absence, a rebellious faction of aristocrats is slowly poisoning the king, and they plan on taking advantage of his addled state by replacing Javan with Rahim, the illegitimate son of the king’s cousin. Javan thwarts the attempts on his life only to have Rahim’s father identify Rahim as the true prince. Javan narrowly escapes execution but is sentenced to the Maqbara, a prison where prisoners are forced into gladiatorial combat against all manners of creatures and monsters for the viewing and gambling pleasure of the aristocracy. Pious, honorable Javan is horrified by this miscarriage of justice and by what’s happened to his kingdom. He sets out to win the tournament to gain an audience with the king and prove his identity. He gains a reluctant ally, then friend, in the warden’s slave, a pale-skinned girl with a secret. As they struggle for their respective freedoms, their evolution from friends to more is romantic and compelling. The action scenes are inventive, as are narrative moments from Rahim’s perspective. In a change from previous Ravenspire settings, Akram is Arab-coded (a sensitivity reader is thanked in the acknowledgements), but there are unobtrusive references to the other books.
An exciting, entertaining series companion. (Fantasy. 12-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-265298-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dark and gripping feminist tale.
A young woman faces her past to discover the truth about one of her nation’s heroes.
When Effy Sayre, the only female architecture student at her university in Llyr, wins the competition to design Hiraeth Manor for the estate of the late Emrys Myrddin, national literary figure and her favorite author, it is the perfect opportunity to leave behind a recent trauma. She arrives to find the cliffside estate is literally crumbling into the ocean, and she quickly realizes things may not be as they seem. Preston, an arrogant literature student, is also working at the estate, gathering materials for the university’s archives and questioning everything Effy knows about Myrddin. When Preston offers to include her name on his thesis—which may allow her to pursue the dream of studying literature that was frustrated by the university’s refusal to admit women literature students—Effy agrees to help him. He’s on a quest for answers about the source of Myrddin’s most famous work, Angharad, a romance about a cruel Fairy King who marries a mortal woman. Meanwhile, Myrddin’s son has secrets of his own. Preston and Effy start to suspect that Myrddin’s fairy tales may hold more truth than they realize. The Welsh-inspired setting is impressively atmospheric, and while some of the mythology ends up feeling extraneous, the worldbuilding is immersive and thoughtfully addresses misogyny and its effects on how history is written. Main characters are cued white.
A dark and gripping feminist tale. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780063211506
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)
In the three years following Eden’s brutal rape by her brother’s best friend, Kevin, she descends into anger, isolation, and promiscuity.
Eden’s silence about the assault is cemented by both Kevin’s confident assurance that if she tells anyone, “No one will ever believe you. You know that. No one. Not ever,” and a chillingly believable death threat. For the remainder of Eden’s freshman year, she withdraws from her family and becomes increasingly full of hatred for Kevin and the world she feels failed to protect her. But when a friend mentions that she’s “reinventing” herself, Eden embarks on a hopeful plan to do the same. She begins her sophomore year with new clothes and friendly smiles for her fellow students, which attract the romantic attentions of a kind senior athlete. But, bizarrely, Kevin’s younger sister goes on a smear campaign to label Eden a “totally slutty disgusting whore,” which sends Eden back toward self-destruction. Eden narrates in a tightly focused present tense how she withdraws again from nearly everyone and attempts to find comfort (or at least oblivion) through a series of nearly anonymous sexual encounters. This self-centeredness makes her relationships with other characters feel underdeveloped and even puzzling at times. Absent ethnic and cultural markers, Eden and her family and classmates are likely default white.
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4935-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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