A promising start to a fantasy series that delivers a superb sense of fun and strong female characters who are both heroes...
A debut secondary-world fantasy charts the story of two peoples at war across a backdrop of mysticism, celestial power, and forbidden love.
Kai is a Moonburner, born with the ability to channel the energy of the moon and release it in spectacular ways. But her kingdom, where the Sunburners rule, prohibits this practice, and she lives in fear with her family. When her secret is exposed, Kai is sent to the desert to die. While struggling to survive, she finds her spiritual guide, or seishen, a talking silver fox named Quitsu with extraordinary skills. The fox can telepathically communicate with other seishens, walk through walls, become invisible, and see in the dark. They are eventually rescued by Pura, a Moonburner. Taken to the capital of the Moonburners, Kai learns to master her immense powers. But the Moonburner queen, Airi, looks on her subjects more as weapons and harbors dark designs for the Sunburners she captures. The queen’s mad quest for supremacy may be her citizens’ undoing, unless Kai makes a dangerous alliance. Hiro, handsome prince of the Sunburners, seems inclined to listen. But is the spark between them destined enmity or something more? In either case, it could easily consume them both. Is the risk worth the reward, and can two peoples be saved from a devastating war? If anyone can do it, Kai can. Kai is a well-drawn, resilient female lead, her compassion as much a source of her dominance as her Moonburning. While her romantic subplot with Hiro turns out to be unsurprising, it is nonetheless sweet. This is true of most relationships in the book, romantic or platonic. They are the strength of the narrative and help make up for an otherwise unexceptional, if serviceable, plot. Kai’s relationship with Quitsu becomes particularly endearing. The fox’s quips and personality add a great sense of mischief to the narrative. And the worldbuilding enjoys a few outright fantastic flourishes, such as the giant bats the Moonburners use as flying steeds.
A promising start to a fantasy series that delivers a superb sense of fun and strong female characters who are both heroes and villains.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-938985-99-7
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Soul Fire Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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