A substantive sequel that strengthens the foundation of its predecessor.
Gaines’ (Amare: Bloodstreams, 2016) sequel sees a flurry of new revelations change the dynamic between Amias and his nemesis, Kaden.
Amias is an altéré—a fighter who was born with enhanced strength, stamina, and healing abilities. More than a year ago, his confrontation with rival altéré Kaden, a criminal who kills anyone unwilling to join his organization, led to the deaths of his brother, Blaise; his mentor, Virgil; and his lover, Jasmine. Now, the altéré who fight for good operate from an old cement factory outside London, and along with some human allies (including Mia, Amias’ ex-girlfriend), they number about 200 strong. Their greatest fighter, a woman named Olivia, trains with Amias. His new mentor, John, believes that Amias will be able to take Kaden down; however, the younger man is insecure in his powers. Later, Amias nearly kills one of Kaden’s people, and John fears that Amias is dangerously obsessed with vengeance. As a result, John places an altéré named Lucas in charge of the next mission to gather intel on Andre, Kaden’s deadliest agent. The six-person surveillance mission, however, goes very wrong, and Amias ends up face-to-face with the man who destroyed his family. Kaden then reveals shocking information about Amias’ parents and sibling—but can the manipulative villain be trusted to tell the truth? In this sequel, Gaines adds to his narrative mythology when a council of altéré leaders from around the world meets in London to decide how to beat Kaden. Action fans will find much to love, including an opening melée at a rock concert and a chase on foot through a restaurant. The hard edge of realpolitik intrudes on the gleeful mayhem during a waterboarding scene. Gaines skillfully executes several twists—sometimes playing upon established events, but occasionally stunning audiences with new revelations. Amias also receives solid advice along the way, such as “You can make a choice to allow what’s happened to overcome you, or you can let it make you stronger.” The finale brings savage closure, but also leaves the door open for further adventures.
A substantive sequel that strengthens the foundation of its predecessor.Pub Date: March 20, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 269
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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