An entertaining and promising series opener about an appealing human and vampire hybrid.
A teenage girl with special abilities uncovers disturbing family secrets and a possible conspiracy while spending the summer in New Orleans in this debut novel.
On the surface, Cheyenne Lane appears to be a typical teenager, living with her parents in Winmore, Virginia. Cheyenne and her family, however, are anything but typical. They are Deuxsang, a hybrid of human and vampire. When she turned 13, Cheyenne had her Ascension, a ceremony intended to awaken her vampire nature. The ceremony took an unexpected turn, and now, at 17, she wonders whether she will ever reveal her vampire side or discover her special powers. When her older sister, Kara, and her husband, Thomas, invite her to spend the summer with them in New Orleans, Cheyenne is eager to explore the city. She befriends Anne Lacroix, a fellow Deuxsang, and embarks on a romance with Eli Ashford, a witch. This liaison is strictly forbidden because, according to family lore, witches were responsible for a massacre that nearly destroyed the Deuxsang. When Cheyenne’s cousin, Rove, comes to visit, Thomas’ behavior grows more sinister and controlling, and Cheyenne learns her family may be harboring dark secrets. She becomes locked in a race to learn the truth behind her visit to New Orleans. Rials’ tale is an exciting and fast-paced YA paranormal romance with an intriguing plot, well-drawn settings, and solid character development. The prologue and opening chapters effectively establish the world of the Deuxsang and the peculiar rituals and strict code of conduct that define them. These chapters also offer a glimpse into the expectations Cheyenne’s family has for her and her concerns that she may not become a true Deuxsang. The primary action takes place in New Orleans, and these sections are replete with lively descriptions of the city, especially the thriving culinary and music scenes. Cheyenne is an engaging and resourceful heroine whose budding romance with Eli parallels nicely with her discovery of her vampire nature and should appeal to fans of Twilight. Their love story anchors the novel, the first installment of a series, and sets the stage for the cliffhanger ending.
An entertaining and promising series opener about an appealing human and vampire hybrid.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-936426-00-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Aletha Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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