A brisk, stylish supernatural thriller.
In this follow-up to series opener 666 Park Avenue (2011), Pierce’s heroine is still puzzling over whether her Park Avenue playboy husband is in league with the devil.
Fledgling witch Jane Doran, née Boyle, hiding from her evil mother-in-law Lynne in a Manhattan fleabag, thinks there’s a chance Malcolm Doran, whom she married in Book One, might be a good person. Although in all likelihood he murdered her grandmother, Malcolm has left Jane with the key to a safe-deposit box chock-full of cash, not to mention access to a bank account that replenishes whatever she withdraws. (The box also contains a glass unicorn, a memento of Annette, Malcolm’s sister, who drowned at age six.) Jane moves into much nicer digs west of Washington Square and invites Dee, a Wiccan pastry chef who’s also on the lam from Lynne, to room with her. Jane’s only hope of calling off Lynne’s vengeful dogs is to find Annette, Malcolm’s sister, who is the true heiress to Lynne’s witchly dynasty. In 666, Lynne plotted the disastrous marriage of Malcolm and Jane in hopes of producing a descendant to replace Annette. However, since Malcolm has now disappeared, the prospect of progeny seems unlikely, and Jane isn’t so sure she wants to continue the marriage in any case. Using the unicorn as a trigger, Jane inhabits Annette’s mind long enough to learn that Annette is indeed alive, but living in squalor. The vision dissipates when the unicorn shatters, and now Jane’s mission is to once again gain access to Lynne’s opulent Park Avenue lair to find more Annette memorabilia. The only way to avoid detection by Lynne is to cast a spell, courtesy of Jane's Wiccan trainers, which transforms blond Jane into sultry brunette Ella, a Brazilian baroness, for one month. Complications ensue when André Dalcascu and his sister, scions of a Romanian witch clan, seek an alliance with the Dorans. Ella’s attraction to André is as immediate as it is counterproductive.
A brisk, stylish supernatural thriller.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-1434907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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