A satisfying romantic fantasy that should please fans of the first book in the series.
A Fae prince journeys to the human world to secure a bride but gets more than he bargained for in Leech’s sequel to The Dark Prince (2015, etc.).
Prince Corin Albrecht of Alfheim is a broken man. Losing his beloved Océane to his best friend, Laen, devastated him, and he dulls his heartache by womanizing and drinking himself into oblivion. His dissolute lifestyle is a source of consternation to his mother, Queen Audrianne, who’s desperate for him to start acting like a future king. She issues him an ultimatum: either he finds a wife or she will force him to enter into an arranged marriage. Unwilling to accept his mother’s choice of a bride, he travels from the Fae world to the mortal one in search of a young woman named Claudette, whom he’s heard about from friends of friends. She’s his ideal wife—sweet, innocent, and easily manipulated; if he can cajole her into accepting three gifts, she will be bound to him forever. Claudette is completely besotted with Corin, despite warnings that he has a dangerous side. His cold, calculated seduction soon turns into something deeper as he realizes he’s fallen in love with her. He desires her love and trust, but his secrets could have devastating, far-reaching consequences. Leech’s sequel expands the Fae world that she introduced in The Dark Prince and introduces a dynamic new heroine. Here, the focus shifts to Prince Corin, showing him to be a man of intractable contradictions. He may have unscrupulous motives for courting Claudette, but he’s not without a conscience, and this tension turns a character who could have been a shallow cad into an intriguing, if tormented, hero. He has a solid foil in Claudette, a sensitive, earnest young woman who seeks to make a difference in the world. Her journey to the Fae lands also allows Leech to introduce the Fae history and the fanciful creatures that once roamed the landscape.
A satisfying romantic fantasy that should please fans of the first book in the series.Pub Date: April 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5227-0800-1
Page Count: 522
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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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