An enticing story about a family and immortality that blends robust storytelling and magical realism.
In Piper’s novel, a Texas woman finds a rare salamander that gives the gift of eternal life.
Juliet Andro unhappily works as a nurse at Heaven Haven, a health retreat near Austin on land that her family has owned for generations. She’d rather do almost anything else and would dearly love to use her degree in avionics engineering, but the family expects her to work for several years as a nurse at the spa. While out walking the property, she finds a mysterious cave that she feels is alive (“She felt as though she was shrinking inside the guts of a living stone creature, a creature she had disturbed by her intrusion”). Juliet notices a faint blue light coming from a pool of salamanders. Oddly, they are luminescent, and there is a queen perched on a rock ledge that has a bump behind a sort of amphibian horn. She touches it and finds that the bump secretes a strong hallucinogen. Later visits to the cave prove more dramatic and curious: The queen pierces the body of another salamander, transfers its immortal powers to that creature, and dies, leaving only one queen. Juliet figures the substance can be harnessed and marketed as a fountain of youth drug, but she must protect the source. And will this even work on humans in addition to salamanders? The discovery is amazing, but Juliet knows it has the potential to destroy her family and everyone around her. Piper’s intriguing premise strictly follows its own sound logic and captures the imagination. The narrative stays grounded by the frequent references to family politics (Texas-style and otherwise), concerns about career goals, and difficult or stunted relationships. Perhaps it’s inevitable that a monumental discovery like the blue queen comes with the potential to ruin everything, but this novel’s multigenerational take on the fountain of youth elixir is exciting to read.
An enticing story about a family and immortality that blends robust storytelling and magical realism.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2025
ISBN: 9798308819813
Page Count: 362
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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