Though many of the same charming characters return from the series debut (The Accidental Alchemist, 2015), the plot this...
An alchemist doing research on a visiting magician suspects he may share her talent, though with less pure motives.
Now that she’s grown accustomed to life with a French-accented, gourmet-cooking, living stone gargoyle named Dorian Robert-Houdin (yes, brought to life by Robert-Houdin, the famous French magician), Zoe Faust is ready for anything. Well, nearly anything, since she’s had the last 330-odd years to prepare, thanks to the Elixir of Life and her longtime practice of alchemy. What Zoe’s not ready for is the strange distance her boyfriend, Max, has kept from her since he returned from visiting his family in China. Zoe’s used to being the partner with secrets, but she’s willing to try to relax with Max on a well-earned night out at a magic show. The visiting performers, billed as Prometheus and Persephone, seem to be regular stage magicians, though Zoe’s neighbor Brixton thinks Prometheus looks familiar. Zoe puts his suspicions out of her head, since she needs to concentrate on learning the secrets of Dorian’s mysterious alchemy text, Non Degenera Alchemia, not listen to the conspiracy theories of a teenage boy. Dorian is counting on Zoe’s dedication to the text. Lately, he hasn’t been able to turn back from his stone state, and he’s worried that one day he’ll become confined within his own body. Both Dorian and Zoe, convinced that the book holds the secrets they need to save Dorian, hope that another alchemist might help Zoe plumb those secrets. When Zoe attends a second showing by the magicians, just to be sure, disaster strikes. Now she knows that there’s something afoot with the out-of-towners, even if it involves murder rather than alchemy.
Though many of the same charming characters return from the series debut (The Accidental Alchemist, 2015), the plot this time is little more than an excuse to trot them out again. Pandian hints that the next installment will focus once more on her main characters, which is what she does best.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7387-4235-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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