An effervescent fantasy crafted from the heart.
This middle-grade debut sees a young outcast discover her true potential while on a quest to save others.
In the kingdom of Glendoch, the town of Tyr, 12-year-old Meylyne sits in a willow tree. She’s originally from the cavernous Between-World but has trespassed to the Above-World to find a special black opal belonging to her mother. Hiding in the tree, she waits to see Prince Piam, who only visits once a year. When a woman climbs into the tree with her, the situation gets precarious. The prince passes directly beneath—and Meylyne falls on him. She bolts back to the Between-World, realizing that she’s broken the First Rule by going above. Her mother, the alchemist Ellenyr, and her great-uncle, Prime Minister Groq, could send her to the Shadow Cellars. When she asks advice from the Old Well, it reveals the ultimatum that Queen Emery has offered Ellenyr: She must cure Prince Piam’s fast-aging illness within three months or Meylyne will live among the Snake People. The Old Well then tells the girl to visit the stream between the towns of Tyr and Welke, where she’ll meet a stalliynx (who has a horse’s head and a lion’s body). She does so, beginning a journey to save the prince and possibly all of Glendoch. With social nuance and a crackling wit, Holland presents a deep bench of fabulous creations in her fantasy adventure. Meylyne is only half-human and forbidden to use the magic that should be her birthright from Ellenyr. Her father, Meph, meanwhile, is a garlysle, who’s got a beak and feathers—and is supposedly a criminal. When Meylyne gives her mother the black opal, Ellenyr isn’t quite overjoyed. The stalliynx, named Hopexivaffoplos-ploossenaagen, suggests Meylyne call him Hope for short. Around this pair grows a cohort of heroes who commit to more and more dangerous tasks. Eventually, Meylyne learns that an aspect of herself—which she’s been taught to be ashamed of—proves central to solving a slew of problems. Holland excels in burying twists that flip the whole narrative on its head. Readers should wish for a longer stay in Glendoch.
An effervescent fantasy crafted from the heart.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-943006-79-3
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Spark Press
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This moody series opener deftly runs on teen angst and hallucinogenic visuals.
In this YA debut, a depressed teen becomes the latest victim in a series of paranormal abductions.
Jason Kaiden, gymnast and honor student at Daleside’s Arden High, is miserable. He’s a “skeleton walking the halls,” barely speaking to his former best friend, Corey Jade, and feeling invisible to the girl of his dreams, Lauren. One day after leaving gymnastics early, he wanders toward the river between Daleside and Engleburry. He experiences a waking vision of a car crashing off the bridge above and into the river, followed by a pink scarf drifting on the water. At home, with his family away for the weekend, he reads online about a string of missing person cases in which power-drained electronics at the scenes in question have been baffling police. Later, researching hauntings, he stumbles on a case from Lake Mowcrie, just 20 minutes away. Though it happened in the 1960s, the circumstances bear a striking similarity to the vision he had earlier of the plummeting car. Then his computer shuts off. His dog, Caleb, barks at his bedroom door. In complete darkness, Jason sees by moonlight that “a figure is perched behind my bed, hunched over and looking down at me.” From here, Parker surrounds readers with an emotionally raw nightmare. Jason’s surreal captivity in a cavern by a hideous, ghostly girl named Kaily might constitute the whole plot of less ambitious novels. But Jason’s stint in the Rift is merely the starting point of further YA drama and paranormal action in this first installment of a series. The enigmatic Director Carlyle, whose shock troops rescue Jason, helps describe supernatural phenomena in saying, “Living thoughts, emotions, and energies...are quantifiable aspects of life itself. The world is nothing but a tide of emotions and living energies caught in a dynamic cycle of ebb and flow.” While Jason uses his newly acquired knack for glimpsing the future to impress Lauren, he still feels a deep connection to Kaily. The themes of loneliness, bullying, and suicide undergo satisfying examination, enhancing a dark, sleek narrative.
This moody series opener deftly runs on teen angst and hallucinogenic visuals.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5239-7804-5
Page Count: 278
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful and romantic, if often overwrought.
In this YA paranormal romance, a teenage girl tries to escape a recurring, five-day time loop that always ends with her boyfriend’s murder.
Grace Freeman, 17, of the town of Boone, Georgia, has died 41 times and woken up 42. On each occasion, she’s found herself in a different timeline—or perhaps an alternate universe—with many altered details. For example, sometimes her twin brother, Jem, is alive, sometimes not. After waking from each “Fall,” as she terms it, Grace has five disorienting days before she and her boyfriend, Ander Hale, are chased down by another teenager, Finn. These three alone recognize the pattern, and no matter how the couple tries to avoid it, Finn always ends up killing Ander. Despite their pleas, all Finn says is “We all have to pay for what we did”—whatever that means. Before the first Fall, Grace, Jem, and Ander had been an inseparable trio since childhood, but their closeness was threatened by a few problems: Ander’s drinking, which was worrisomely like his father’s; Grace’s possible acceptance at Alton Preparatory for her senior year, which would have taken her away from Boone; and Finn’s irresistible beauty and arrogance. But on this 42nd wake-up, something’s different: Ander doesn’t remember what’s happening, and other strange things make Grace question her sanity. She has only days to prevent Ander’s murder, stop Finn, and—she hopes—stop Falling. Bernard (Trust Me, 2017, etc.) writes capably from Grace’s overheated, first-person perspective, using highly somatized emotions to prove the heroine’s turmoil: knotted stomach, crawling skin, chills, a tight chest, nausea, clenched teeth. Although the stressful situation (and a final twist) help to justify it, the adolescent melodrama can sometimes feel over the top: a high school breakup means “We were ruined”; news from Alton makes Grace feel “like I was going to shiver into a thousand pieces.” The love triangle plotline is also nothing new, nor are Grace’s fairly standard failings, such as shyness, clumsiness, and an inability to believe that the cute boy likes her. Still, the characterization is thoughtful throughout, and Bernard makes good use of setting to help ground the story.
Suspenseful and romantic, if often overwrought.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63375-822-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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