A dark, sometimes-insightful tale that mixes time-tested fantasy elements.
In this medieval-fantasy debut, an abused teenager finds refuge in a kingdom that holds secrets about her own destiny.
Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth DePerry lives in a convent run by Father Stroff, and it’s a hellish place for girls of all ages. She was placed there after her father failed to return after attempting to rescue his wife from kidnappers. Despite her misery, she loves the outdoors and her horse, Odin. One evening, Mother Maggie enters Elizabeth’s room to hear her confession of sins, and ends up abusing the teen verbally and physically. After retaliating with violence, Elizabeth escapes the convent with 11-year-old Alonna. The girls ride Odin northward and soon encounter a filthy band of human traffickers. Eventually, though, the Frost King of the North’s soldiers, led by Capt. Conry, rescue them and escort them to their kingdom. There, Elizabeth and Alonna meet the infirm King Joseph and his queen, Lady Victoria. Back at the convent, meanwhile, Father Stroff is controlled by a shadowy overlord with horrific intentions. His brother, Joshua, hunts for the convent escapees, even as the General in the South prepares for war against the North. The Frost King places his hope in Elizabeth because a witch, Ina, says that she possesses great power. He sends her on a mission to meet a dragon, after giving her special dragon-scale armor for protection. In this launch of a new fantasy series, debut author Reyes pulls readers into dark territory early, with Mother Maggie calling his protagonist a “whore” and worse. Although Elizabeth is a strong female character, the medieval setting, in which her life only gets worse until men change her fate, gives the narrative the quality of an old fairy tale. The Frost King exposes Elizabeth to a life of royalty, but when she receives magical training from Ina, the tale truly becomes her own. Frequently, Reyes provides marvelous moments of wisdom, as in the line, “Anyone doing what they love to do, can feel free anywhere they are in life.” However, the story might have benefited from smoother transitions between scenes and stronger copy editing (“She saw his water was green and filthy becoming angry her horse would be treated so”).
A dark, sometimes-insightful tale that mixes time-tested fantasy elements.Pub Date: July 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5004-1110-7
Page Count: 418
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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