A dark fantasy brimming with passion and peril.
A girl sells her heart to a demon to escape abusive parents, unwittingly signing up for more than she bargained for.
Mixed-race white/Latina high school student Dee Moreno (she has her father’s light brown skin and textured hair) attends a prestigious boarding school in Portland, Oregon, keeping necessary distance from her alcoholic, abusive parents. A tough home life has wrung any belief in fairy tales out of her even though demons announced themselves as real to the public via press conference when she was only a child. The demons emerged in order to make deals—humans can trade body parts (their own) for a wish. When Dee’s scholarship is suddenly revoked, she finds herself back in the market for fairy tales; she refuses to go back home. She trades a two-year lease on her heart for tuition money. As a new member of Portland’s “troop of heartless,” Dee follows her demon’s biddings directly into battle with other, truly horrifying monsters. She and the other heartless work to close the voids that periodically open all around the world to keep the monsters that issue forth from overrunning the planet. As the danger ratchets up, so do her feelings for another member of the troop. Dee’s never felt more alive—yet never been possibly so dead. The slowly revealed lore of the demons coupled with Dee’s adventures make for a whirlwind of a page-turner. Readers will devour this romantic, Faustian fable.
A dark fantasy brimming with passion and peril. (Paranormal suspense. 15-adult)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-31459-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
A fast-paced supernatural mystery ideal for fans of horror games.
The game knows her darkest secret—and it might be trying to kill her.
Wracked with guilt over her little sister’s recent death, 17-year-old Vivian Reynolds leaps at the opportunity to play an online escape room horror game called Locked In that was anonymously emailed to her. In hopes that her return to streaming will help financially support her parents, Viv starts a practice playthrough by herself to test the waters. When the game asks her to confess a secret, Viv admits that she killed her sister. Uncanny events follow in the aftermath of her surreptitious confession, resulting in her parents and peers losing trust in her. With the help of Ash, a fellow social outcast, Viv becomes sure that a demonic clone is trying to ruin her life by committing heinous acts in her name. Told in Viv’s first-person perspective, the story has an eeriness that’s complemented by quippy jokes and gaming references. The plot twists are numerous and satisfying, helping to build suspense as readers try to figure out the mystery. Classic horror imagery is paired with a flawed protagonist who reckons with the guilt and grief caused by her habit of lying and her obsession with streaming. Viv’s mom is white, and her dad is Japanese American; Ash reads white.
A fast-paced supernatural mystery ideal for fans of horror games. (content warning) (Horror. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9798890030764
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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