by Gavin Ough ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 31, 2014
Even as a novella, Ough has written a satisfying story that will make readers wish for more stories from this world.
In debut author Ough’s fantasy adventure, a young thief with a special gift is forced into a dangerous adventure to save his mother, his lover and his homeland.
Despite growing up in the poor part of Palandine, the capital city of the kingdom of Trathlain, Gremlaw had a happy childhood. That is, until his father dies in a work accident, causing his mother to withdraw emotionally and leaving Gremlaw to fend for himself. As the youth becomes a thief, he discovers that he has a special ability. He studies crowds in the markets and trains himself to see the “patterns of people and the spaces that flowed between and around them.” Spotting the “spaces in between” allows him unnatural success in eluding capture. It’s early in his career as a subsistence thief that Gremlaw befriends an orphaned street girl named Huleta, who quickly grabs the growing boy’s attention. But no sooner has a new normalcy been established than Gremlaw is forced into service by Duke Wattiern DeLarouge, a ruthless patriot who’ll do anything to protect Trathlain, including blackmailing Gremlaw. With the lives of his mother and Huleta in the balance, Gremlaw has no choice but to accept the duke’s mission. The neighboring empire of Lavash has a new plot to conquer Trathlain using a drug known as Forever. Addictive at first use, the drug robs people of their wills and leaves them incapable of defeating their new addiction. Though he’s never been beyond the walls of his city, Gremlaw is sent out into Ough’s well-designed world to uncover the details of the plot and discover how the drug is being distributed to the border garrisons that protect Trathlain from invasion. Through many trials, Gremlaw must use his wit and his abilities if he hopes to return home and save the lives of the women he loves. With strong writing and characters to match, from Huleta’s staunch independence to the duke’s ends-justify-means attitude, Ough has penned a remarkable adventure. Though the very end of the second epilogue feels a little too pat, this is a journey worthy of readers’ attention.
Even as a novella, Ough has written a satisfying story that will make readers wish for more stories from this world.Pub Date: July 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615987736
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Serealities Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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