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 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: FANTASY | PARANORMAL FICTION | PARANORMAL FANTASY
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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. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | FANTASY
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PERSPECTIVES
An almost-but-not-quite-great slavery novel.
12
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The celebrated author of Between the World and Me (2015) and We Were Eight Years in Power (2017) merges magic, adventure, and antebellum intrigue in his first novel.
In pre–Civil War Virginia, people who are white, whatever their degree of refinement, are considered “the Quality” while those who are black, whatever their degree of dignity, are regarded as “the Tasked.” Whether such euphemisms for slavery actually existed in the 19th century, they are evocatively deployed in this account of the Underground Railroad and one of its conductors: Hiram Walker, one of the Tasked who’s barely out of his teens when he’s recruited to help guide escapees from bondage in the South to freedom in the North. “Conduction” has more than one meaning for Hiram. It's also the name for a mysterious force that transports certain gifted individuals from one place to another by way of a blue light that lifts and carries them along or across bodies of water. Hiram knows he has this gift after it saves him from drowning in a carriage mishap that kills his master’s oafish son (who’s Hiram’s biological brother). Whatever the source of this power, it galvanizes Hiram to leave behind not only his chains, but also the two Tasked people he loves most: Thena, a truculent older woman who practically raised him as a surrogate mother, and Sophia, a vivacious young friend from childhood whose attempt to accompany Hiram on his escape is thwarted practically at the start when they’re caught and jailed by slave catchers. Hiram directly confronts the most pernicious abuses of slavery before he is once again conducted away from danger and into sanctuary with the Underground, whose members convey him to the freer, if funkier environs of Philadelphia, where he continues to test his power and prepare to return to Virginia to emancipate the women he left behind—and to confront the mysteries of his past. Coates’ imaginative spin on the Underground Railroad’s history is as audacious as Colson Whitehead’s, if less intensely realized. Coates’ narrative flourishes and magic-powered protagonist are reminiscent of his work on Marvel’s Black Panther superhero comic book, but even his most melodramatic effects are deepened by historical facts and contemporary urgency.
An almost-but-not-quite-great slavery novel.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-59059-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | HISTORICAL FICTION | FANTASY | HISTORICAL FANTASY
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