A frightening fantasy tale that mixes cosmic dangers with domestic terror.
Two young brothers square off against predators both human and unearthly in Carlton’s supernatural thriller-series starter.
Ten-year-old Nick Emerson and his 5-year-old brother, Frank, feel like it’s them against the world. Dick Pickerd, their mother Lisa’s boyfriend and boss, regularly molests Nick, who vows never to allow Frank to be victimized. Frank, meanwhile, is harassed by bullies who like to toss him in the school dumpster. The boys are also beset by “schades”: ghastly, pale beings who skulk in shadows, shriek at light, and sometimes attack; two years ago, Nick and Frank saw their dad, Nick Sr., get killed by one of them. Things look up when school janitor Harry Armstrong gives Nick a pendant watch that catalyzes his ability to stop time for several minutes—which he uses to defeat Frank’s bullies—and a doctor and Lisa spot the sexual abuse and have Pickerd arrested. Nick and Frank reconnect with Nana Emerson and Uncle Howie, who reveal that people with the Emerson bloodline have used paranormal powers in a 5,000-year war against the schades, and they also help Nick develop his time-stopping ability and assist Frank with his burgeoning telepathic talent. Then Pickerd gets out of jail and aims to abduct the two brothers, closing in on them with the help of schades. This first book in Carlton’s Heroes of the Line series features monsters of several kinds, grounded in a compelling portrait of an abused child trying desperately to avoid his tormentor; Nick also has a psychic premonition that Lisa will die if she learns about the molestation. Carlton’s prose is eerie and atmospheric, with the schades a pervasive, macabre presence that heightens the boys’ panic and despair: “He dared a peek into the dim light just in time to see the gray peeling face fade back into shadows. It raised its dusty looking hand and waggled its fingers at him, but it was the sinister smile still hovering in the air while the rest of it disappeared that left him with shivers on the inside.” The result is an imaginative page-turner in which magic augments a tense psychological drama.
A frightening fantasy tale that mixes cosmic dangers with domestic terror.Pub Date: July 6, 2023
ISBN: 9798338496428
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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