Historical fiction buffs will enjoy an action-packed adventure in an unusual setting.
Liss (The Twelfth Enchantment, 2011, etc.) delves into a bitter corner of history to chronicle the tale of a young man trapped in the Portuguese Inquisition.
It’s 1755, and Sebastian Foxx, born Sebastião Raposa, sails from London to Lisbon. "In Portugal, the Inquisition continued unabated and deadly, pervasive and merciless." Sebastian had been sent to England a decade previously, when he was 13. His parents, "New Christians" (forcibly converted Jews), fell victim to the Inquisition. Sebastian wants revenge, and he particularly wants to kill Father Pedro Azinheiro, all "youthful face and disarming smile." With detailed descriptions of gritty 18th-century life, the book never stumbles through anachronisms or artificial-sounding dialogue. Liss creates an Escape From New York–like narrative after the 1755 Great Earthquake, with Lisbon, a city of "peculiar charm and strange beauty," reduced to rubble, rape and rampage. Sebastian also wants to help Charles Settwell, an English trader who smuggled him out of Portugal and whom he now finds impoverished. Settwell blames the machinations of English traders Rutherford and Roberta Carver. Sebastian decides to recoup Settwell’s fortune, but the further he proceeds, the more duplicity he uncovers, even on the part of his old friend Inácio, now the leader of a gang of miscreants. Liss focuses the romantic narrative thread on an unconsummated love between Sebastian and Roberta, which is the least satisfying portion of the novel. Trained as a "thief taker" by Benjamin Weaver (hero of other Liss works), Sebastian is driven by angst and anger—"[m]y broken soul was made for this. I was a devil and this was the pit." There is much derring-do as he brings Azinheiro to justice, copes with secrets, and arranges escapes to London for friends and foes alike.
Historical fiction buffs will enjoy an action-packed adventure in an unusual setting.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6897-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Michaels’s fan base isn’t likely to be increased by this improbable distaff pastiche of Mission: Impossible.
The Sisterhood takes on yet another evildoer in their endless quest to right wrongs against unjustly maligned women.
Architect Isabelle Flanders’s life was destroyed when her coldly ambitious employee Rosemary Hershey framed her for vehicular manslaughter and stole her ideas and her fiancé Bobby Harcourt. Now the Sisterhood (The Jury, 2005, etc.) has devised a diabolical plan to help her get revenge and recover her reputation. Wealthy Sisterhood stalwart Myra Rutledge installs Isabelle in a luxurious office and buys a Virginia property to set up a bogus contest in which local architects will be invited to design a sumptuous horse farm, planning to make Isabelle and Rosemary the only finalists. Meanwhile, Bobby, long fed up with Rosemary’s greed, sues for divorce, planning to start his own architectural firm. Rosemary, who’s receiving anonymous letters reminding her that it was she and not innocent Isabelle who ran down and killed a family, is sinking into a funk as the Sisterhood increases the pressure. A rainy night in a cemetery, bogus snakes and a broken rope finally get Rosemary to confess and leave the Sisterhood ready to plot their next adventure.
Michaels’s fan base isn’t likely to be increased by this improbable distaff pastiche of Mission: Impossible.Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7278-6349-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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