A rewarding, though brief, finale to the Peace Keeper trilogy.
In this final fantasy-series installment, Hugus (Plant Speech, 2011, etc.) brings another of her Children of the Earth into focus as a final battle against their elemental adversary approaches.
Katarina “Kaya” Contigas is a Peace Keeper, living in Chicago with her housemates, Lisbeth Moore and Thomas McCarthy. Each possesses a powerful gift from Mother Earth, with whom they communicate regularly, hoping to foil the machinations of the jealous, powerful Earth scion, Ashlinn. A restaurant chef by day, Kaya has the ability to heal wounds and sickness, and she does so frequently for neighborhood animals. When Shadeed Qureshi, a doctor living in southern Chile, contacts her via mail and telephone, she learns that her powers aren’t as secret as she’d like. Kaya agrees to join the attractive doctor in Chile as he combats a mystery ailment affecting people there, even as Lisbeth—who’s psychically sensitive to storms and earthquakes—suspects that Ashlinn is again manipulating humanity through global warming. In Chile, Kaya lives with Shadeed and goes with him to remote Andean villages to help the diseased. While assisting, however, she discovers that each healing forcefully drains her own vitality and requires her to rest. She and Shadeed inevitably grow closer, but a violent confrontation with Ashlinn threatens to break the bonds shared by all Children of the Earth. In this latest Peace Keeper adventure, Hugus fashions a narrative that’s unique to Kaya, just as she did for Tom and Lisbeth in the previous two novels. She captures the vibrant Chilean environs, such as when “a gorgeous display of brown earth and grey rock [is] defiantly visible through the white snow.” The system of Peace Keepers is explained clearly to refresh readers, who learn that they all have different levels of power, with Ashlinn, unfortunately, at the top of the pyramid. Although Shadeed is a perfectly irresistible catch, his and Kaya’s romance occurs organically, and they sound the depths of their relationship with questions such as, “Why are we who we are instead of someone else?” Readers may wish to see more of the villain, though, as Ashlinn truly doesn’t appear in earnest until the last act.
A rewarding, though brief, finale to the Peace Keeper trilogy.Pub Date: March 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4917-8836-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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