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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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