An imaginative epic of magic and mayhem.
Psychic brothers battle pallid ghouls, bug swarms, and their own dark secrets in Carlton’s intense fantasy novel.
This third book in the Heroes of the Line series finds 14-year-old Nick Emerson and his 9-year-old brother, Frank, continuing the battle against the pale, milky-eyed, whispery-voiced, shadow-dwelling schades and their allies, the vestiges, which are monstrous black clouds that rust cars and scratch people to death. The brothers and their schade-hunting posse venture from their suburban home into the realm of the Sidhe, which is inhabited by magical folks from Irish mythology who are cousins of the schades—only nicer, better-looking, and handy with daggers and bows. There, Nick and Frank learn about their ancestor Oemir, a legendary hero. Druid priest Cathbad infuses Nick with a potion that lets him shape-shift into Oemir and his other progenitors; the Sidhe princess Ilirya, who was Oemir’s wife, falls in love with him. Aided by their paranormal powers—Frank is telepathic; Nick can stop the flow of time and open portals between worlds—the boys weather many perils, including a swarm of gnat-sized baby vestiges and a giant blackbird that flaps off with Frank in its talons. Things get even hairier when they return home, where the schades, led by The One, have begun killing schade-hunters and dressing up in their skins. More insidiously, The One tries to telepathically instill in the boys a paralyzing sense of guilt and mutual distrust over a long-past child molestation trauma. Carlton deftly limns a sword-and-sorcery dimension teeming with vivid figures—“Her bare feet slapped hard and wet, spitting droplets onto the stony floor as she raced across the room, her seaweed plaits spraying salt water down her glistening scaled body,” he writes of sea-dwelling Sidhe queen—while retaining a feel for the human realm’s gritty realism. The prose is punchy and evocative, especially in Nick’s many gory rumbles with schades: “The being moved like cold molasses, giving the teen time to clear his head, flip his blade out and sweep its glorious sharpness through its wrist, freeing himself from its grip.” The result is an enchanting page-turner.
An imaginative epic of magic and mayhem.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2012
ISBN: 9781477559437
Page Count: 296
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 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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