A well-researched, comprehensive, but messy Viking tale.
In this debut historical novel, a young nobleman becomes a captive of Vikings set to conquer British kingdoms in the late ninth century.
Mael MacConaill is the son of Lord Bran in the Irish town of Ard Mhacha. When the Danes, led by Viking lord Ímar, raid the town’s monastery, they initially take Mael to perform folk songs on his lute. But he remains their prisoner and ultimately becomes separated from his family and friends. He winds up on the ship the Red Wasp as part of Lord Sidroc’s band. Mael gradually learns the Danish tongue and even gains a friend in warrior Meintet. He also finds comrades after a raiding party in Wessex picks up a Saxon slave, Blythe, along with her 9-year-old daughter, Godiva. The Danes assign Mael the task of teaching Danish to Godiva and learning her Saxon language. Meanwhile, the Vikings continue to raid such kingdoms as Mercia and East Anglia. But Wessex and its king, Æthelred, seem the most resistant and may prove the Danes’ greatest challenge. While the battles rage, Mael must deal with Cuthbert, a boy whose unveiled animosity results in his recurrent bullying of both the lute player and Godiva. This epic series opener is brimming with vivid fictional and real-life characters. Nunn circumvents potential muddle by rigorously detailing players’ titles and relationships while concise descriptions throughout avoid any narrative lulls. Battles are aplenty but never graphic, and though the perspectives are largely those of savage Vikings, sympathetic Mael is the clear protagonist. He searches for his purpose among the Vikings, such as gathering materials or tending to the wounded. But as he’s not a warrior, Mael is noticeably absent from the action-packed final act, which leads to an ending that deftly sets up Book 2. The author’s accompanying illustrations are indelible, particularly landscape images that are, not surprisingly, packed with characters (some of these pictures are sadly split in two to accommodate the book’s standard size). Unfortunately, a host of errors distracts from the story, from missing letters or words (“Out on the sea, left to himself, Mael thought of the Briton boys who now hostages”) to improper punctuation, like an omitted period at the end of a sentence (“This wind will take you to a large river that flows from the heart of Mercia”).
A well-researched, comprehensive, but messy Viking tale.Pub Date: April 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5043-0752-9
Page Count: 262
Publisher: BalboaPressAU
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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