A novel entry into the world of teenage fantasy that ultimately unfolds into a truly epic saga.
From debut author Barr comes an urban-fantasy novel about an adolescent boy on the cusp of mysterious change and the strange town within which he seeks refuge.
As a young man in Chicago, Conor shares an apartment with his mother: “They weren’t well off, but they weren’t dirt poor either.” The boy is handy with a tin whistle and makes a little extra money playing in a local Irish bar as his mother slowly dies of cancer. One night, he meets a stranger who informs him that he, Conor, is one of the “Dark ones.” Without supplying any further details, the stranger then proceeds to bite Conor on the hand and vanish into the Chicago River. Afterward, a series of events, including the death of Conor’s mother and a letter from an obscure aunt, brings the boy to the small town of Tinker’s Grove, Wisconsin. Arriving with a severe fever, he’s soon whisked to the local monastery with the aid of friendly townspeople, who have a chocolate Labrador retriever named Troubles. As the man in charge of the monastery explains to the local physician, Brother Luke, “What ails this boy is beyond the power of your medicine.” After a bizarre occurrence involving wild animals, a swirling fog, and an Indian burial mound, Conor recovers from his illness, but he’s never quite the same. The novel expands to include a complex affair that involves the river-dwelling creature Piasa, “the Devourer of Souls,” and ancient beliefs, showing that a lot can happen in a seemingly quaint little Midwestern town. Full of folklore and charm, the story is an inviting mix of the fantastic, the innocent, and the altogether sinister. Readers are unlikely to forget the ever-present Troubles, to whom Conor remarks later in the book, “wherever we are is different from where we’ve been.” The book does hit its share of speed bumps, though, as it’s dotted with flat declarations (“Don’t you see, Conor has to accept who he is,” one character explains, rather obviously). All in all, however, the book avoids the clichés of the genre while providing a swift, spiraling journey.
A novel entry into the world of teenage fantasy that ultimately unfolds into a truly epic saga.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937387-66-2
Page Count: 570
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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