Well-written, well-plotted, and mostly well-paced, a feisty addition to the historical fantasy genre.
Haltom’s debut novel follows Gwendolyn de Cardinham, who, upon discovering that she may be King Arthur’s fabled heir, finds herself caught in the middle of a clash of crowns.
In defiance of proper ladylike behavior, Gwendolyn not only carries a sword, she knows how to use it. Upon encountering a band of mercenaries loyal to the would-be usurper Prince John, she draws her sword in protection of her estate, Penhallam. While on their way to deliver one of the captured mercenaries to a nearby gaol, Gwendolyn’s taciturn constable William Rufus takes her to see an aged prior, who gravely informs her that she is the descendant of King Arthur and thus the rightful heir to his mythical sword, Caliburn. When Gwendolyn discovers that Prince John, angling for his brother King Richard’s crown, has been hunting for Caliburn, she realizes that she’s uniquely poised to thwart John’s rebellious efforts. Under the command of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the dowager queen, Gwendolyn puts herself in the middle of the brothers’ duel for the crown. The queen’s plan takes Gwendolyn and William on a perilous journey to the castle of Arundel, where Gwendolyn must ultimately confront her own skepticism about her mythical heritage. Haltom creates likable heroes (feisty Gwendolyn and loyal William stand out) and enjoyably detestable villains. The author shows a meticulous concern for historical authenticity, evident in the little details, such as Gwendolyn’s struggle to conceal a sword in a lady’s gown. Though history buffs will undoubtedly appreciate Haltom’s thoroughness, the attention to detail can at times reduce the novel’s pace to an almost agonizing slowness, particularly in the many traveling scenes. Despite these shortcomings, the author’s writing style is smoothly readable throughout, especially in scenes heavy with action and dialogue. As Gwendolyn’s story builds to its tension-filled climax, Haltom draws the storylines together into a cohesive, largely enjoyable whole. The addition of magical elements in the forms of William’s visions and an evil sorcerer add a welcome layer of adventure and intrigue. Plus, Haltom wisely leaves room for a sequel.
Well-written, well-plotted, and mostly well-paced, a feisty addition to the historical fantasy genre.Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 9780996307307
Page Count: 328
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This large, stately, and intensely powerful new novel by the author of Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show is constructed around a cattle drive—an epic journey from dry, hard-drinking south Texas, where a band of retired Texas Rangers has been living idly, to the last outpost and the last days of the old, unsettled West in rough Montana. The time is the 1880s. The characters are larger than life and shimmer: Captain Woodrow Call, who leads the drive, is the American type of an unrelentingly righteous man whose values are puritanical and pioneering and whose orders, which his men inevitably follow, lead, toward the end, to their deaths; talkative Gus McCrae, Call's best friend, learned, lenient, almost magically skilled in a crisis, who is one of those who dies; Newt, the unacknowledged 17-year-old son of Captain Call's one period of self-indulgence and the inheritor of what will become a new and kinder West; and whores, drivers, misplaced sheriffs and scattered settlers, all of whom are drawn sharply, engagingly, movingly. As the rag-tag band drives the cattle 3,000 miles northward, only Call fails to learn that his quest to conquer more new territories in the West is futile—it's a quest that perishes as men are killed by natural menaces that soon will be tamed and by half-starved renegades who soon will die at the hands of those less heroic than themselves. McMurtry shows that it is a quest misplaced in history, in a landscape that is bare of buffalo but still mythic; and it is only one of McMurtry's major accomplishments that he does it without forfeiting a grain of the characters' sympathetic power or of the book's considerable suspense. This is a masterly novel. It will appeal to all lovers of fiction of the first order.
Pub Date: June 1, 1985
ISBN: 068487122X
Page Count: 872
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1985
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
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