A spooky and satisfying literary mystery that features two celebrated authors.
Triana (Summer of Yesterday, 2014, etc.) takes inspiration from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in this horror-tinged YA novel.
Six years ago, Micaela Burgos left Sleepy Hollow, New York, and moved to Miami with her father, leaving her mother behind with her creepy doll collection and obsession with the village’s most famous inhabitant, Washington Irving. Her mother always told Micaela that they were descended from Irving—but everyone knows he had no children, and how would Mami’s Cuban parents be related to him anyway? After years of little contact, Micaela, now a senior in high school, receives a letter from her mother, saying only, “Lela, please come home. It’s urgent.” By the time Micaela heeds the summons, Mami is dead, apparently of a fall in the bathtub. But the teen keeps having dreams about a ghostly woman who’s somehow familiar. As Micaela tries to learn what her mother wanted from her, she finds herself attracted to two very different boys: childhood friend Bram Derant, a member of one of the town’s oldest families, and Dane Boracich, a skinny graduate student trying to prove that Irving had a child after all, the result of an affair with the widowed Mary Shelley. Both of the boys warn her not to trust the other—and neither of them is telling her the whole truth. As forces ghostly and mundane work to isolate Micaela, can she find the strength to stand on her own—and fulfill her mother’s mission? In this page-turning, eerie novel, the author skillfully builds an air of quiet menace, where “pumpkins sit on front porches like families gathered in the dark, telling ghost stories.” The book’s action scenes echo the rhythms of hoofbeats, and the reader’s pulse should pound along with Micaela’s. It’s indeed ambitious to write a horror story involving Irving and Shelley, titans of the genre; luckily, Triana turns out to be up to the challenge, with a smart, unusual take on the true legend of Sleepy Hollow.
A spooky and satisfying literary mystery that features two celebrated authors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63375-351-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship.
A battered girl and an injured rugby star spark up an ill-advised romance at an Irish secondary school.
Beautiful, waiflike, 15-year-old Shannon has lived her entire life in Ballylaggin. Alternately bullied at school and beaten by her ne’er-do-well father, she’s hopeful for a fresh start at Tommen, a private school. Seventeen-year-old Johnny, who has a hair-trigger temper and a severe groin injury, is used to Dublin’s elite-level rugby but, since his family’s move to County Cork, is now stuck captaining Tommen’s middling team. When Johnny angrily kicks a ball and knocks Shannon unconscious (“a soft female groan came from her lips”), a tentative relationship is born. As the two grow closer, Johnny’s past and Shannon’s present become serious obstacles to their budding love, threatening Shannon’s safety. Shannon’s portrayal feels infantilized (“I looked down at the tiny little female under my arm”), while Johnny comes across as borderline obsessive (“I knew I shouldn’t be touching her, but how the hell could I not?”). Uneven pacing and choppy sentences lead to a sudden climax and an unsatisfyingly abrupt ending. Repetitive descriptions, abundant and misogynistic dialogue (Johnny, to his best friend: “who’s the bitch with a vagina now?”), and graphic violence also weigh down this lengthy tome (considerably trimmed down from its original, self-published length). The cast of lively, well-developed supporting characters, especially Johnny’s best friend and Shannon’s protective older brother, is a bright spot. Major characters read white.
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship. (author’s note, pronunciations, glossary, song moments, playlists) (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781728299945
Page Count: 626
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
A thrilling romance that could use more even pacing.
For the second time in her life, Leo must choose between her family and true love.
Nineteen-year-old Princess Leonie Kolburg’s royal family is bankrupt. In order to salvage the fortune they accrued before humans fled the frozen Earth 170 years ago, Leonie’s father is forcing her to participate in the Valg Season, an elaborate set of matchmaking events held to facilitate the marriages of rich and royal teens. Leo grudgingly joins in even though she has other ideas: She’s invented a water filtration system that, if patented, could provide a steady income—that is if Leo’s calculating Aunt Freja, the Captain of the ship hosting the festivities, stops blocking her at every turn. Just as Leo is about to give up hope, her long-lost love, Elliot, suddenly appears onboard three years after Leo’s family forced her to break off their engagement. Donne (Brightly Burning, 2018) returns to space, this time examining the fascinatingly twisted world of the rich and famous. Leo and her peers are nuanced, deeply felt, and diverse in terms of sexuality but not race, which may be a function of the realities of wealth and power. The plot is fast paced although somewhat uneven: Most of the action resolves in the last quarter of the book, which makes the resolutions to drawn-out conflicts feel rushed.
A thrilling romance that could use more even pacing. (Science fiction. 16-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-328-94894-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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