A fast-paced, gloriously intricate introduction to a potential epic.
A 17-year-old girl and a 22-year-old man get caught up in a conflict between godlike beings that’s been raging for eons in Ashton’s debut mythic fantasy.
The worst part of hospital intern Fiona Megan “Fi” Patterson’s date with guitarist co-worker Zeke Prisco isn’t his awkward rejection of sex, but the fact that he witnesses her epileptic seizure, her first episode in years. (She’s a troubled girl, in general; her mom died a decade prior and she never knew her father.) Her seizure results in her having a dream of a baby, which she sees again in a vision when her regular patient Peter becomes atypically responsive. Then a group led by a man named Kleron arrives at the hospital to see Peter, and they embark on a murderous rampage when asked to show identification. Fi, Zeke, and Peter make it out alive and eventually get help from Fi’s uncle and guardian, Edgar. They soon learn that people known as the Firstborn have been around for millions of years, split into two rival bands. The Asura, who long ago opposed a being called Father, have launched a global attack against their enemies—Father’s warriors, the Deva. Fi and Zeke each discover special abilities as they struggle to survive harrowing battles with evil beasts bent on human domination—or annihilation. This novel, the first of a series, is dense with back story. There’s so much, in fact, that the main plot essentially stands still as readers catch up with it. The final act, however, features nonstop action with daunting villains; Max is the best one—a creepy vagrant and whose monstrous “Trueface” (or genuine appearance) Ashton teases for most of the narrative. There’s also an impressive blend of biblical and Greek mythologies, with numerous characters whose names readers will find familiar. This book is emphatically adult, with an abundance of coarse language and hefty violence—blood, beheadings, and spilled entrails. Ashton doesn’t address some lingering questions, such as who exactly Father is, until near the end, and others remain unanswered. But more is sure to come, as the coda leaves characters’ fates in the air and multiple worlds to explore.
A fast-paced, gloriously intricate introduction to a potential epic.Pub Date: March 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9971737-0-3
Page Count: 478
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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