Aptly introduces characters and relationships, while merely teasing the story’s fantastical qualities.
A teenage girl yearns for the guy next door, even when it turns out he’s immortal, in this first installment of Walters’ (Demons, 2015, etc.) YA paranormal romance series.
Raine Cooper, nearly 17, has been best friends with Eirik Seville ever since they were kids. But just when romance develops between the two, Raine attracts the interest of dishy new neighbor Torin St. James. And there’s something special about Torin beyond his looks: he somehow scratches her Sentra without anyone seeing him near it. Raine scoffs at his claim of magic, but when cracked ribs impede her breathing, Torin’s there, and her pain inexplicably vanishes. As it happens, he’s an Immortal, and Raine’s caught the attention of a few more: Andris and sisters Maliina and Ingrid, Norwegian exchange students in Kayville, Oregon. Far from a run-of-the-mill Mortal, Raine can see the Immortals’ magical runes drawn on skin or walls. It’s clear that Maliina hates Raine (having provided her with the rib-cracking), but there may be another threat to the teen, who’s too scared to drive her car, which someone covered in runes. Even if Torin’s intent on protecting Raine, he’s not exactly forthcoming, refusing to explain precisely what Immortals are. Once Raine finally gets answers, she’ll make a decision that will change her life forever. Like any effective series opener, this novel brims with mystery. There’s a hint, for example, that Raine’s father, missing since a plane crash only months before, may have a connection to Torin and the others. The plot centers on romance, a mutual attraction (primarily Raine ogling Torin) that deepens as the two stay on each other’s minds constantly. It’s melodramatically enticing—and perhaps a little cruel—that, despite Torin’s undeniable appeal, Raine keeps Eirik around. The devotion of so much of the narrative to the love triangle unfortunately sidelines the supernatural elements. Nevertheless, a stirring final act clarifies the Immortals, not only their purpose, but their plan as well, putting more than one person in danger. There’s plenty left unresolved for future books, including Eirik, who seems to know more about Torin than he lets on.
Aptly introduces characters and relationships, while merely teasing the story’s fantastical qualities.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Firetrail Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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