A sometimes-engaging time-hopping tale of two sisters entangled in an ancient conflict.
In Ristau’s fantasy novel, two sisters and their guardian angels look into a mystery in their past.
As the story opens in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, in 2015, editor Liz Miller has just wrapped up the most recent issue of the monthly, ad-supported tabloid she founded. She gets a call from her younger sister, Lee, who has an idea for a novel and believes that Liz would be the best person to write it. To that end, Lee reveals that her old friend Melanie Montgomery recently contacted her, and their brief conversation brought up some strange memories. She recalls that Melanie once had an interest in witchcraft and was eager to see a supposed satanic altar in the woods near Salinas, California. But as Lee recounts her suspicions about her friend (“I think Melanie put a curse on us back then and I think she’s stalking me again, now,” she says), Liz isn’t the only one listening. Also invisibly present is Hannah, a guardian angel who’s watched over Lee for years, and her trainee, Roy Barrett. It’s Roy’s first job, but Hannah, who’s Liz’s and Lee’s distant ancestor, has been doing it for more than 300 years. The angels can’t save the sisters from the darkness that’s coming, but they can guide the girls, “where and when [they] can.” Liz isn’t so sure about Lee’s talk of demons and curses, but the more the siblings investigate, the more they realize that there really are evil, supernatural forces in the world—and they don’t want their secrets revealed. In this straightforward paranormal novel of good versus evil, Ristau leans heavily into Christian iconography with a tale of guardian angels and opposing demons, and their effects on the world. Intriguingly, Hannah and Roy have the ability to slide into the past to view events that have taken place in the past—even hundreds of years ago—and see how those incidents led to current predicaments. These scenes have a distinct flair, with word choices and descriptions of settings that feel accurate to the disparate time periods.
A sometimes-engaging time-hopping tale of two sisters entangled in an ancient conflict.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9798888121023
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Dorrance
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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