Epic in scope and size, this book sets itself up for many sequels to come.
In Victorian London, two foundling boys with unusual talents find themselves at the center of an ancient battle between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Charlie Ovid is a 16-year-old mixed-race orphan in Reconstruction-era Mississippi who has been convicted of murdering a White man. So far, he has been executed three times for his crime, but in spite of the nightly beatings inflicted upon him ever since, Charlie remains physically unscathed, his uncanny healing power a mystery even to himself. Marlowe is another orphan, found as a baby gently glowing in a freight train at a dead woman’s breast and raised by two adopted mother figures, the timid Eliza and the muscular, tattooed Brynt. “The shining boy,” as he comes to be called, is raised in the slums of London and then as part of a sideshow act in a traveling circus crisscrossing the American heartlands. His origins, his powers, and his fate are as much mysteries to him as Charlie’s cycle of suffering and healing, until they're each visited by Frank Coulton and Alice Quicke, a detective duo employed to find remarkable children like Charlie and Marlowe and bring them back to the mysterious Cairndale Institute in the far north of Scotland, where they will be protected and trained in the uses of their powers. Cairndale, a labyrinthine manor house on the shores of a dark, fathomless loch, turns out to be as full of secrets as the children themselves, and Charlie and Marlowe—along with a Japanese dustworker named Komako; Ribs, the invisible girl; and shy Oskar and the flesh giant Lymenion who sleeps under his bed—must unravel the true motives of their inscrutable guardian, Dr. Henry Berghast, before Jacob Marber, a figure of tremendous power who used to be an unusual child just like them, can tear apart the seal between the worlds of the living and the dead. A fast-paced novel whose action and intrigue make short work of its daunting page count, this tome is clearly set up to be Book 1 of a larger series. However, while the world is intricate and the characters finely drawn, there is such a sheer volume of people, plotlines, backstories, and lore being introduced that the autonomy of the novel itself suffers.
Epic in scope and size, this book sets itself up for many sequels to come.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-83366-2
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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
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