An intriguingly multilayered, if slightly uneven, novel of one man’s Italian adventures.
Leviant presents a surreal work of “true fiction,” set in modern-day Italy.
Narrator CL has been awarded a writing fellowship in Venice by the Committee on the Arts of the Jewish Venice Quincentenary. CL’s goal is to write about the colorful 16th-century rabbi Leone da Modena, who was also a prolific gambler and author. CL meets some intriguing figures during his stay; at a synagogue, for example, he encounters a silent woman with two different-colored eyes. It turns out the woman doesn’t speak at all, and it will take CL some time to get her to open up to him. He also meets a compelling woman from France named Mazal who calls herself “almost ultra-Orthodox”; she and CL, after some initial awkwardness, find themselves drawn to each other, despite his lack of French and her halting English. Their rapport eventually leads them to accompany each other on a visit to Padua, where she seeks to visit the final resting place of another famous rabbi. (The 11th-century Spanish Hebrew poet Shlomo ibn Gvirol also plays a surprisingly significant role in the novel.) At other points, CL encounters a jogging, multilingual rabbi and a mysterious poet who writes with a quill; with so many offbeat characters, one wonders if CL will be able to get any writing done at all. Leviant incorporates a number of intriguing, and thought-provoking points about Judaism into his story, including a discussion of whether Jewish people should visit cemeteries. There are some moments, however, that are less compelling, particularly during some of CL and Mazal’s interactions, as when he comments to her that she’s “delicious, like fresh baguette”; readers may not share Mazal’s sentiment that CL is a “laughy man.” Thankfully, this is not solely a work about oddball seduction; things take a decisively strange turn late in the story, as it turns out that there’s more to CL’s new acquaintances than expected.
An intriguingly multilayered, if slightly uneven, novel of one man’s Italian adventures.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-60489-294-9
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.
A woman must undergo fearsome trials to free the imprisoned Titans of Greek myth in Owen’s fantasy novel, the second in a series.
Advancing from minor office clerk in the Order of Thieves to Queen of the Underworld, Lyra Keres’ star should be rising. But thanks to Cronos, King of the Titans, she and her longtime friend and fellow thief Boone have been ensnared in a new challenge beneath the earth: Hot on the heels of winning the twisted Crucible Games, Lyra—who has recently been granted goddess powers—finds herself trapped in Tartarus. Separated from her beloved Hades, she must liberate the fearsome Titans from seven Locks to restore the cosmic balance. As Lyra progresses through the Locks engineered by the Gods—each as tricky and lethal as the last—the pressure mounts as the Titans repeatedly remind her, “You will be our savior.” Rhea, the wife of Cronos, reveals that Lyra began this quest “a hundred and fifty years ago,” adding further devastation to the task at hand; the knowledge is helpful, but also painful, as Lyra reflects, “Suddenly, I don’t want to know that it’s real. Because then I have to contemplate how many times I might have ended up in Tartarus already.” As she materializes in and out of time pockets, Lyra sees Hades’ troubled childhood unfold and struggles not to intervene to save the man she loves. In this second entry in the author’s Crucible series, following The Games Gods Play (2024), Lyra’s cynical quips continue to make her an engaging protagonist. Her inner monologues are balanced with hope, love, and longing for Hades as she meets various versions of him. While resilient, Owen’s heroine is also vulnerable (“Was I his pawn in more ways than I ever realized?”). Her introspection effectively contrasts with the simmering rage and restraint in Hades’ chapters. The supporting Titans are given more depth than the traditional myths allow, weaving a knotty family fabric for the reader to navigate alongside Lyra.
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781649378538
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: yesterday
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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