The first in a promising series filled with likable characters and fun adventures.
Adventure abounds in the Scottish Highlands in Karsner’s debut novel, in which a special woman with untapped elemental powers tries to stay one step ahead of a ruthless soldier bent on exacting revenge.
As far as the flame-haired Caitlin realizes, she’s just a regular woman with a penchant for caring for the sick and injured people of her village. She feels nothing mystical about her predilections; instead, she’s more inclined to wonder what the practicing physicians down in Edinburgh are doing. Her enigmatic, eccentric old Uncle Wabi, back on the Isle of Skye, always seemed capable of conversing with animals, but Caitlin doesn’t think much of it. That slowly begins to change, however, when she’s called on to care for the young men returning home from the bloody Battle of Culloden. The members of the powerful MacKinnon clan become allies with Caitlin after she manages to save their younger brother Ian from a terrible ax wound sustained on behalf of “The Bonnie Prince.” Caitlin, however, is no match for an outbreak of malaria that claims the lives of another group of soldiers placed in her care. Convinced that his brave son died at the hands of a witch, the evil Cmdr. Campbell, in a murderous rage, swears vengeance on Caitlin; the innocent healer only narrowly manages to escape after summoning up some hitherto unknown abilities. Overall, this is a mostly charming tale of magic and mages. Karsner works quickly and efficiently to establish her principal players, which also include a pregnant noblewoman on the run and a sinister landowner bent on retrieving her. Before readers can say “abracadabra,” Caitlin befriends an injured wolf cub while she’s on the run and sets up shop inside a mysterious cave hidden deep in the woods. Although the story’s tone is heavily sweet and innocent, the author still manages to imbue the simple plot with a real sense of tension and suspense.
The first in a promising series filled with likable characters and fun adventures.Pub Date: June 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-943369-00-3
Page Count: 394
Publisher: SeaDog Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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