Gleefully iconoclastic. For that dwindling demographic with a sense of humor about religion, Maeve’s profane skewering of...
Third in Cunningham’s irreverent chronicle of Mary Magdalen (Magdalen Rising, 2007, etc.).
Maeve (aka the Healer Woman, aka Mary of Magdala) is back, as unapologetically lusty and smart-mouthed as ever. This installment considers the aftermath of Mary’s marriage to Jesus. Christ is always with her, but in less corporeal form. Newly resurrected, he’s left a motley crew behind to cobble together Christianity: pregnant Maeve, fractious Apostles, mother-in-law Miriam and friends Martha, Mary of Bethany and Lazarus. Knowing that Peter and James are scheming to appropriate Jesus’ offspring, Maeve flees Jerusalem for her sacred bordello/Temple of Isis in Magdala, Galilee. After giving birth to a girl, Sarah, with golden eyes identical to her father’s, Maeve heads for Celtic territory, Galatia, where she hides out in a mountain shack with baby Sarah and the endearingly loopy Miriam, who hears angel voices and croons litanies to herself. Androgynous Sarah does not welcome puberty. Itinerant, self-appointed Apostle Paul, battered by stoning, is deposited on Maeve’s doorstep, and she administers her healing touch, which includes a brief hook-up with the puritanical future saint. When he orders the Galatian women to be silent and quashes a snake-worshiping fest honoring fertility goddess Brigit, Paul triggers a major brouhaha. Sarah embarks on the trail of her absent-though-omnipresent father, and Maeve follows, too late: The Apostles, fooled by Sarah’s male attire, tried to circumcise her, and now she’s gone to sea. Maeve, sought after by sailors for her ability to manipulate the wind, traverses the Mediterranean in fruitless pursuit. Then, with Miriam, Maeve journeys to Ephesus, shrine of huntress-deity Artemis, the logical place for a band of neo-Amazon pirates led by Sarah to wash up. In Ephesus, Miriam prepares for her Assumption; Paul once again sets precedents for Church-sanctioned sexism; and 50-something Maeve takes a lover—John the Evangelist.
Gleefully iconoclastic. For that dwindling demographic with a sense of humor about religion, Maeve’s profane skewering of the all-too-human foibles of the Church fathers is a hoot.Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9798828-7-6
Page Count: 474
Publisher: Monkfish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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