Fans of complicated fantasy will enjoy the journey.
Epic fantasy from debut author Hall about a prince’s quest and the voracious powers against him.
Prince Alarik, firstborn son of King Humbert, finds himself nervous when the city of Rivia is under siege. Though the granite walls are 60 feet high, a powerful force is attacking the Kerg, a civilized but battle-ready people who worship Tor, the god of war. As hordes of “thralls”—zombielike creatures with “no regard for human life”—attack the castle, the terror of war arrives. Though the young prince has trained for such events all his life, he finds the blood and gore “unsettling.” Nothing, however, can prepare him for the figure behind the attack. The “lich,” “an ancient sorcerer of terrible power,” seeks to avenge wrongs against his ancestors, with an assortment of terrifying magic at his disposal. As Rivia falls, King Humbert explains to his son that his background is more complex than he imagined. The truth involves an amulet and information about Alarik’s mother. After the king decrees that Alarik must escape the city with a small band of guards, the stage is set for an epic journey that will decide much more than Alarik’s fate. With a large cast of characters, various maps, and “Units of Weight and Measure”—e.g., “Finger: 1 inch”—the unabashedly dense story is full of magic, action, and details that sometimes prove tedious: “Alarik meditated and focused on becoming one with his spirit. After a time he couldn’t move a muscle. And then he floated up out of his body. At first he spun in a slow circle without direction, but he sharpened his mental focus and gained control of his ghost-like form. He shot straight up through the tent and out into the night. His eyes still worked and he saw everything with crystal clarity.” The novel is its best when exploring its darker creations, such as the Blood Druid Luan, who, though he and his kind perform human sacrifices, sees such an act as necessary and bereft of evil: “When someone dies they believe he’s reborn.”
Fans of complicated fantasy will enjoy the journey.Pub Date: June 17, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dead Reckoning/Naval Institute Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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