A bevy of rich characters, plot twists, and possible paths for future books.
A teenage boy who’s able to summon souls and revive corpses flees with his uncle from those seeking to eliminate his kind in the first installment of debut author Markoff’s fantasy series.
Years ago, people in the Land of Moenda endured the Purging, in which the ruling members of the Ascendancy sent Sanctifiers to kill the powerful Deadbringers, who can bring dead people back to life. But although the Ascendancy has full power in the South, the Bastion controls the North, and its agents have been covertly protecting a surviving Deadbringer: 15-year-old Kira Vidal, who lives in the city of Opulancae, working as a mortician and headstone carver at his uncle Eutau’s funeral parlor. He’s also been helping Bastion agents track down a killer. That assistance, however, leads to an attack from a Kataru, an elite warrior, during which Kira is forced to defend himself by reanimating and commanding corpses. As a result, the Ascendancy gets wind of his existence, so Kira and Eutau go on the run. The Sanctifiers soon figure out Kira’s possible destination: the Southern city of Florinia. Meanwhile, a curious woman named Daemeon visits Kira in his dreams and offers him a guide for his arduous trek—a young girl named Teemo. Along the way, Kira learns several secrets, including a few life-changing ones that his uncle’s been keeping from him. In their travels, they encounter a motley batch of characters, including a wounded man named Lyse. Kira digests new information on Moenda history and the full extent of Deadbringers’ capabilities. Overall, Kira’s journey becomes more about discovery than outrunning Sanctifiers, and the author packs her novel with intrigue; for example, Kira suspects that maybe Teemo may be more than she seems. There are also shocking reveals, such as the fact that Eutau may know more about Kira’s long-gone father than he lets on. Perhaps best of all, Markoff’s setting is engagingly ambiguous—the specific year and exact location are unknown, giving the narrative a timeless quality. That, coupled with an impending Bastion/Ascendancy confrontation, should make the series’ next installment tempting for readers.
A bevy of rich characters, plot twists, and possible paths for future books.Pub Date: May 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9971951-0-1
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Tomes & Coffee Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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