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THE BLACK MADONNA AND THE YOUNG SCULPTOR

MYTHIC DIMENSIONS OF CELTIC CHARTRES

A sometimes turgid, sometimes beguiling fantasy of spiritual awakening through creativity.

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A woodcarver’s sacred project unites Druids and Christians in artistic communion in this soulful fantasy adventure.

It’s the year 99 C.E., and the Gaulish townsfolk of Carnotum—present-day site of the cathedral of Chartres in France—are suffering under the jackboot of the Roman Empire, which is intent on stamping out worship of their Celtic gods. When the Black Virgin, an ancient wooden statue of a divine mother and child, gets vandalized, the Druidic priest Bryok asks young woodcarver Caradoc to sculpt a replacement. The assignment poses dangers—he’s menaced by Carnotum’s chieftain Turi, who wants to carve the statue himself—and pitches Caradoc into a labyrinth of occult experience. He is supervised by a veiled woman named Lavena, aka Crunarch, “the keeper of the flame,” who provides him with candles, lightning-felled wood, consecrated tools, and a studio in a forest grotto and drives off marauding Romans with her whip. To help him visualize the Black Virgin, Caradoc consults Kailex, a seeress who goes into a trance to narrate a prehistoric Celtic migration out of an Atlantis-like drowned continent, and the bard Érimón, who sings of the baptism of the Black Virgin. With the sculpture in hand, Caradoc learns that Lavena has been captured by the Romans. He rushes to save her from slavery. Müller’s yarn blends Christian legend with pagan mythology to assimilate the Virgin Mary into a tradition of “earth mothers,” from the Greek goddess Artemis to the Egyptian deity Isis. Apart from some scuffles and a vivid, well-drawn scene of a degrading slave auction, the drama here is mainly emotional, religious, and very female centered. The novel’s mystical effusions—“With the blood from the sacred crucible, the blood that is my blood, that is His blood, that is our blood, I dedicate this place to the eternal feminine within all human beings”—sometimes go on too long. But Müller’s workmanlike, slyly lyrical prose—“he picked up a handful of tiny pebbles and threw them indifferently over the lake, listening to them plop, disrupting the water’s flawless surface and sounding like a clutch of elves clapping”—gives an enchanting folkloric sparkle to Caradoc’s world.

A sometimes turgid, sometimes beguiling fantasy of spiritual awakening through creativity.

Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-73401-702-1

Page Count: 322

Publisher: Alkion Press

Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020

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IRON FLAME

From the Empyrean series , Vol. 2

Unrelenting, and not in a good way.

A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.

Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.

Unrelenting, and not in a good way.

Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023

ISBN: 9781649374172

Page Count: 640

Publisher: Red Tower

Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024

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THE HEMLOCK QUEEN

From the Nightshade Crown series , Vol. 2

Dark magic, romance, and divinity.

What do you do when the voice in your head is real?

Lore, Bastian, and Gabe are all still alive following the events in The Foxglove King (2023), despite a ritual meant to take Lore’s life and usher in a new age for the god Apollius. But Lore, determined to live despite—or perhaps because of—her deep and unyielding connection to the magical death force Mortem, is unwilling to be used as a tool. Now that Bastian is no longer prince but Sainted King, Gabe is Priest Exalted, and Lore is the king’s deathwitch, her safety should be secure. The court, however, distrusts Lore and her uncanny powers, and even more dangerous are the gods, leaning ever closer and perhaps not so separate from the world as a thwarted ritual might imply. Bastian has been changing, able to control Spiritum, Mortem’s mirror image, in new and powerful ways, but also acting more erratic and strange. Meanwhile, the voice in Lore’s head is growing louder. To make matters worse, Gabe and Bastian can hardly look at each other, while Lore feels torn between the two of them and in need of both. In the second volume of the Nightshade Crown series, things go from bad to much worse, while a familiar gothic atmosphere looms oppressively around the characters. As Lore strives to keep as many people as safe as possible, others scheme with sinister forces and powerful magic. In a tense and atmospheric installment, Lore moves quickly between heart-pounding romantic encounters and adrenaline-filled moments facing danger and death.

Dark magic, romance, and divinity.

Pub Date: April 9, 2024

ISBN: 9780316435291

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Orbit

Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024

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