Series fans will be thrilled by this screamingly funny return to Hell.
The Devil’s Intern series continues, narrated this time by Alfarin the Viking prince.
This hugely imaginative and entertaining series follows the adventures of four young devils trapped in Hell despite the fact that they are really very decent people. Team DEVIL consists of Mitchell and Medusa, both recently deceased teenagers, plus Elinor, who died in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and Alfarin, dead for 1,000 years and the leader of this book’s adventures. The Devil’s wife (and the titular Banshee), Beatrice Morrigan, has escaped into one of the Nine Circles of Hell, leaving Elinor, and perhaps Mitchell’s little brother, to become his Dreamcatcher, the soul required to filter the Devil’s awful dreams while he sleeps. Alfarin, who loves Elinor with all of his dead heart, knows he must save her by finding Beatrice, so he leads the team into the Nine Circles. Guided by Virgil himself, the team retraces the Divine Comedy by going through the circles in reverse order. Plenty of action and suspense ensue, but Hosie keeps the focus on the wry comedy generated by Alfarin’s unique outlook on life and on his own magnificent manliness. Alfarin has no doubt about his superior masculinity and constantly remarks on the Viking way of doing things in a consistently and amusingly formal voice, and all of this will keep readers chuckling.
Series fans will be thrilled by this screamingly funny return to Hell. (Paranormal suspense. 15 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3650-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
In spite of its narrative unevenness, this novel of friendship, love, and fighting for one's beliefs should find a place...
When war broke out a year ago in the fairy city of Ferrum, its inhabitants, except for four young rebellious fairies, fled in search of a safer home.
Now, a cease-fire has been declared, but tensions still run high among the combatants: the fairies; the gnomes, who work for the fairies in exchange for edible fairy body parts; and the invading tightropers, a species that swings about the city via ropes they spin in their mouths. In order to maintain peace in Ferrum, teen fairy Beckan Moloy and her remaining fairy friends form an unlikely alliance with gnomes and a tightroper. With Ferrum, Moskowitz has built a vividly gritty fairy realm and populated it with a richly diverse cast of characters, but the narrative can be confusing. Third-person past-tense narration alternates with third-person present, and it is peppered with remarks from an intrusive narrator. Only about two-thirds of the way into the novel do readers find out that the story is one fairy’s chronicle of the war through Beckan’s eyes, interspersed with asides. Though initially disconcerting, these trenchant asides are often quite endearing: “Shit, what the fuck am I even doing? What kind of history book doesn’t have a map?” the narrator laments early on.
In spite of its narrative unevenness, this novel of friendship, love, and fighting for one's beliefs should find a place among fans of the modern fairy story. (Fantasy. 15-18)Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2942-6
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
Teen and adult readers who like their mysteries gritty and literary, with a touch of magic: seek this one out.
A fiercely realized teen uses astrological skills to solve a heartbreaking mystery.
Joanne Crowe, an astrologer so accurate and empathetic that clients became obsessed with her, knew her days were numbered. She’d always insisted on the truth of her impending “eventuality” to her daughter, Avicenna, but when Joanne goes missing, it’s still a shock. As Avicenna embraces her own ability to read destinies in the stars and planets to unravel the mystery of her beloved mother’s disappearance, her skills introduce her to both unlikely allies and revolting, violent foes across Melbourne’s most luxurious and down-at-the-heels neighborhoods. Avicenna is a revelation: prickly and brilliant—she’s the first student in years to ace the entrance exam at a highly competitive magnet high school—she pursues the truth doggedly even as the likelihood of her mother’s death forces her to re-experience the physical and emotional trauma of the fire that took her father’s life 10 years prior. Lim throws class differences into high relief and highlights the casual, cruel racism multiracial people still face in modern Australia. Her taut, assured thriller weaves together astrology and mythology, poetry and poverty, and several generations of mothers whose love can’t protect their children from humanity’s ugliest tendencies.
Teen and adult readers who like their mysteries gritty and literary, with a touch of magic: seek this one out. (Mystery. 15 & up)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-922182-00-5
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Text
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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