A charming and inventive tale with a brave heroine confronting romance and dangerous entities.
A young woman must deal with a missing sister and a peculiar university in this debut paranormal adventure.
Hailey’s life is not quite what it seems. She works with her sister Holly as a waitress at her family’s pub in Pittsburgh, dancing for the crowd and teasing the friendly bartender, Fin. The bar is a popular local spot run by her Uncle Pix, who has taken care of the sisters since their parents died in a fire. In her dreams, Hailey sees a strange being named Asher. When Holly disappears, the normal veneer of Hailey’s life begins to evaporate. She learns Asher is an Envoy, responsible for ferrying souls from the earthly world to the other side. He and his fellow Envoys are trapped in a realm between heaven and Earth, and Hailey’s death would allow them to return home. One in particular, Cobon, is plotting to see this happen. Hailey’s life changes when she leaves Pittsburgh for a university in The Middle of Nowhere, Alaska, where she learns of the paranormal world she’s about to become a bigger part of. Fin is not what he seems either—he and Asher are both part of the university. And they both want to protect her, but they’re at odds with each other, creating a complicated love triangle with Hailey’s life hanging in the balance. There are obvious parallels to the Harry Potter series and the YA novels that followed in its wake. Hailey has to suddenly come to grips with a perilous new world and finds out she’s more special than she thought she was. The university is populated with weird and wonderful characters, just as Hogwarts was in the Potter books. But McCoy has been careful to create her own mythology, familiar enough to draw in readers and unique enough to keep their interest. In Alaska, there are people-eating trees, yetis, and poltergeists. The Envoys can be terrible beasts, but Asher’s struggle with his love for a human becomes compelling. Hailey is a strong character even when she doesn’t realize it, which gives her an inviting vulnerability. And the revelations surrounding Fin as his story unfolds make for some delightful surprises. There are a lot of facets to recommend here, chief among them McCoy’s worldbuilding ability and characters readers will surely want to see again.
A charming and inventive tale with a brave heroine confronting romance and dangerous entities.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62342-232-5
Page Count: 434
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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