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 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
A familiar but heartfelt romance for easygoing readers.
In O’Gorman’s YA debut, two best friends try to fool people into thinking that they’re in love—and then discover a new facet of their relationship.
Sally Spitz is a frizzy-haired 17-year-old girl with a charming zeal for three things: Harry Potter (she’s a Gryffindor), Star Wars, and getting into Duke University. During her senior year of high school, she goes on a slew of miserable dates, set up by her mother and her own second-best–friend–turned-matchmaker, Lillian Hooker. Sally refuses to admit to anyone that she’s actually head over Converses in love with her longtime best friend, a boy named Baldwin Eugene Charles Kent, aka “Becks.” After a particularly awkward date, Sally devises a plan to end Lillian’s matchmaking attempts; specifically, she plans to hire someone to act as her fake boyfriend, or “F.B.F.” But before Sally can put her plan into action, a rumor circulates that Sally and Becks are already dating. Becks agrees to act as Sally’s F.B.F. in exchange for a box of Goobers and Sally’s doing his calculus homework for a month. Later, as they hold hands in the hall and “practice” make-out sessions in Becks’ bedroom, their friendship heads into unfamiliar territory. Over the course of this novel, O’Gorman presents an inviting and enjoyable account of lifelong friendship transforming into young love. Though the author’s reliance on familiar tropes may be comforting to a casual reader, it may frustrate those who may be looking for a more substantial and less predictable plot. A number of ancillary characters lack very much complexity, and the story, overall, would have benefited from an added twist or two. Even so, however, this remains a largely engaging and often endearing debut.
A familiar but heartfelt romance for easygoing readers.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-759-7
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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