Debut novelist Chen has created an engaging character and a rich, believable world. Sci-fi fans will love this fun,...
A fast-paced spy thriller set on a cruise ship to Mars.
Kangaroo has the top-secret clearance, the experience, and the fancy scanning implants in his eye to be a very good spy. And there’s one thing he has that nobody else does—the mysterious ability to open a “pocket universe,” a portal to empty space in a parallel universe where he can stash stuff. Pretty handy. You might even say irreplaceable. But that doesn’t stop his boss from sending him off-world on a mandatory vacation while their department gets audited, “like a parent banishing a noisy child who’s preventing the adults from getting their work done.” A pleasure cruise to Mars might be fun for some people, but it turns out that Kangaroo doesn’t really know what normal people do on vacation, and he kind of would prefer to keep on being a spy. Only problem is, there’s nothing to use his skills on—at least until the crew finds two dead bodies and Kangaroo gets drawn into an investigation that turns up more than anyone on board was bargaining for. Like, way more. Could-start-an-interplanetary-war more. The pace never flags in this high-stakes thriller, the plot never stops twisting and turning, and our hero never loses his sense of humor.
Debut novelist Chen has created an engaging character and a rich, believable world. Sci-fi fans will love this fun, high-tech adventure.Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-08178-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
There are few surprises, but it’s still satisfying to travel with these characters toward their more-than-well-earned happy...
The witch Diana’s and the vampire Matthew’s quests to discover their origins and confront the threats to their star-crossed union tie up as neatly as one of Diana’s magical weaver’s knots.
In the resolution of the All Souls trilogy, Diana’s impossible pregnancy with Matthew’s twins advances as various forces seek the couple’s separation, their destruction or both, mainly due to the covenant against liaisons across supernatural species lines. While Matthew searches for genetic answers to how he and Diana could be cross-fertile and what that will mean for their children, Diana seeks magical revelations from the missing Ashmole 782 manuscript, the fabled Book of Life. Figures from their pasts also resurface, injecting additional danger and urgency into their search. The novel lacks the sweep of the previous book (Shadow of Night, 2012), which offered a vivid immersion into the daily life and court intrigue of late 16th-century London and Prague. But, as in the previous two installments, there are healthy doses of action, colorful magic, angst-y romance and emotional epiphany, plus mansion-hopping across the globe, historical tidbits and name-dropping of famous artworks and manuscripts.
There are few surprises, but it’s still satisfying to travel with these characters toward their more-than-well-earned happy ending.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-02559-6
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
PROFILES
Then comes the fire storm and "It is so short and jumbled and jangled" . . . because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre but it is precise jumble and jangle, disconcerting and ultimately devastating.
Pub Date: March 21, 1969
ISBN: 0385312083
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1969
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