Fans of the genre will find much to treasure in this action-ready, if occasionally simplified, historical depiction.
Schrader (Knight of Jerusalem, 2014, etc.) delivers the second book in a historical fiction trilogy about12th-century crusader Balian d’Ibelin.
The first volume in this series saw Balian rise from the position of a landless knight to a baron over the course of nearly a decade. At the outset of this installment, the year is 1178 and Balian is married to the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, Maria. The “exceptionally tall, dark-haired and well tanned” Balian visits with the very ill king of Jerusalem. The king hopes to settle his succession, so his concern rests with Balian, and those whose job it is to defend the Holy Land. Muslim forces, including those under the control of Salah ad-Din, are bent on the destruction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and available resources are spread thin. What can be done “to keep the Holy Land safe for Christian settlers and Christian pilgrims”? Enter the infamous Knights Templar, who propose building a fort at Jacob’s Ford on the Upper Jordan. As construction progresses and blood is spilled, readers are taken on a journey into a time of hostile multiculturalism. People as diverse as Scottish knights, Greek clergy, and the Fatimid Caliphate converge in peaceful and not-so-peaceful ways as the book deftly paints a time of international conflict. The idea that Europeans ever had a stronghold in the Middle East, let alone a kingdom, may surprise readers unfamiliar with the time period. Regardless of readers’ knowledge, however, the era will prove indisputably fascinating as cultures (and swords) clash. The descriptions can be lengthy and occasionally obvious, such as when wealthy guests at an important wedding are said to come “bearing gifts with an eye to gaining favor,” or when Maria reflects on the possibility of her husband dying: “what a bleak and desolate place this world would be without him!” Taken as a whole, though, the novel succeeds in exploring not only Balian himself, but also the time and place that might produce such a man. Despite its many formalities, honorable words, and pleas to God, it’s an era that may leave many readers wondering, as one character does about the Christian forces, “Why didn’t God help them?”
Fans of the genre will find much to treasure in this action-ready, if occasionally simplified, historical depiction.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62787-273-7
Page Count: 630
Publisher: Wheatmark
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A super-exorcism that leaves the taste of somebody else's blood in your mouth and what a bad taste it is. King presents us with the riddle of a small Maine town that has been deserted overnight. Where did all the down-Easters go? Matter of fact, they're still there but they only get up at sundown. . . for a warm drink. . . .Ben Mears, a novelist, returns to Salem's Lot (pop. 1319), the hometown he hasn't seen since he was four years old, where he falls for a young painter who admires his books (what happens to her shouldn't happen to a Martian). Odd things are manifested. Someone rents the ghastly old Marsten mansion, closed since a horrible double murder-suicide in 1939; a dog is found impaled on a spiked fence; a healthy boy dies of anemia in one week and his brother vanishes. Ben displays tremendous calm considering that you're left to face a corpse that sits up after an autopsy and sinks its fangs into the coroner's neck. . . . Vampirism, necrophilia, et dreadful alia rather overplayed by the author of Carrie (1974).
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1975
ISBN: 0385007515
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1975
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Here, after last year's Of Love and Shadows, the tale of a quirky young woman's rise to influence in an unnamed South American country—with a delightful cast of exotic characters, but without the sure-handed plotting and leisurely grace of Allende's first—and best—book, The House of the Spirits (1985). When little Eva Luna's mother dies, the imaginative child is hired out to a string of eccentric families. During one of her periodic bouts of rebellion, she runs away and makes friends with Huberto Naranjo, a slick little street-kid. Years later, when she's in another bind, he finds her a place to stay in the red-light district—with a cheerful madame, La Senora, whose best friend is Melesio, a transvestite cabaret star. Everything's cozy until a new police sergeant takes over the district and disrupts the accepted system of corruption. Melesio drafts a protesting petition and is packed off to prison, and Eva's out on the street. She meets Riad Halabi, a kind Arab merchant with a cleft lip, who takes pity on her and whisks her away to the backwater village of Agua Santa. There, Eva keeps her savior's sulky wife Zulema company. Zulema commits suicide after a failed extramarital romance, and the previously loyal visitors begin to whisper about the relationship between Riad Halabi and Eva. So Eva departs for the capital—where she meets up with Melesio (now known as Mimi), begins an affair with Huberto Naranjo (now a famous rebel leader), and becomes casually involved in the revolutionary movement. Brimming with hothouse color, amply displayed in Allende's mellifluous prose, but the riot of character and incident here is surface effect; and the action—the mishaps of Eva—is toothless and vague. Lively entertainment, then, with little resonance.
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1988
ISBN: 0241951658
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1988
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