A fantasy tale full of lively characters and exciting twists.
A man wants only to return to his wife and son, but the sea is full of dangerous people and untold mysteries in Schlegel’s retelling of Homer’s Odyssey.
The Trojan War is finally over, and Otis Seehus can, at long last, return home to his beloved wife, Penelope, and his son, Mac, whom he hasn’t seen since he was a newborn. He sets off on a ship with two other men, Curly and Mowgli, hoping to arrive back at his home in Ithaca soon, but the journey doesn’t go as planned. The small crew encounters the fearsome, brutal Capt. James of the ship Jolly Roger. From there, a series of other unfortunate and often strange obstacles keeps Otis from his family for 14 long years. He encounters many foes, including the evil queen of Calypso Island and the legendary and deadly Sea Witch; meanwhile, in Ithaca, the castle is overrun by violent suitors, and Penelope takes up drinking to cope with the stress. Fifteen-year-old Mac has grown up without knowing his father and now seeks to find him. He escapes the castle to find the ship of the Lost Boys, led by Peter Pan. There he also meets Jinni, a magical man who seemingly knows more about the sea than anyone. This reworking of the Odysseyutilizes a varied range of fairy-tale characters as well as figures from more recent classic literature to tell this ancient story about one man’s quest for home. The work provides a sharp change from Schlegel’s later crime thriller, Junction (2015), which lacks this book’s referential manner, but it in no way disappoints, and it will satisfy its intended audience of fantasy fans. It’s an engaging but also quite rich adventure, in part because it doesn’t shy away from serious character development. In particular, Schlegel does well to transform well-known characters, moving them away from their origins to meet the demands of the narrative—as he does, for instance, with his adult version of Peter Pan—while still respecting their original essence.
A fantasy tale full of lively characters and exciting twists.Pub Date: April 30, 2021
ISBN: 979-8746042279
Page Count: 353
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.
This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550369
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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