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Vengeance Obtained

A dense novel filled with excellent elements that falls victim to its own ambitions, ultimately leading to more exhaustion...

A war involving angels, vampires, werewolves, and more is unleashed on the supernatural world in this urban fantasy debut.

To his fellow vampires, 900-year-old Marcel Dekrey might seem to be relatively normal. In actuality, however, Marcel is an undercover angel, working as a spy for God. He lives under the guise of a vampire in order to report back to God and the other angels the happenings in the supernatural realm that exists under the noses of most people and involves beings such as vampires, wizards, werewolves, lycans (werewolves who gain their powers by choice and are able to change back and forth at will), zombies, wraiths, and more. Meanwhile, an evil, powerful vampire called Stefano the Gouge plans on taking over the world with his lycan army (“Stefano always had an affinity for the ferals—especially the lycans. They were strong and loyal, traits he admired greatly. They seemed to share his appreciation for boldness and ferocity”). He knows the key to victory is to repossess the Necronomicron, the ancient Book of the Dead, which includes a spell to defeat angels. The U.S. government, which seized the book from the Nazis during World War II, conceals the treasure at Area 51, where Gen. Richard Massey investigates rumblings regarding a supernatural plot to steal it. The novel brims with a number of imaginative ideas and creatively fleshed-out historical back stories for the assorted immortal characters. There’s something admirably audacious about the number of seemingly disparate elements woven together here, from religious mythology to horror to even astrophysics. But the book also falls into the same trap as many other current urban fantasy series, namely trying to accomplish too much. It spends vast amounts of exposition explaining the difference between these and other authors’ iterations of various fantasy creatures, and not enough time on character or plot development. An undercover vampire angel is a convoluted enough concept without also factoring in an X-Files-lite government subplot and a heavenly war. The tale also alternates between first-person and third-person narrative, depending on the chapter, which creates a discordant, messy feel, structurally speaking.

A dense novel filled with excellent elements that falls victim to its own ambitions, ultimately leading to more exhaustion than exhilaration for the reader.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-1-945379-07-9

Page Count: -

Publisher: Green Ivy Publishing

Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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