What more could series addicts ask?
Third in Carey’s supernatural urban fantasy series (Autumn Bones, 2013, etc.) set in Pemkowet, a small resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan.
In summer, tourists pour in to marvel at Pemkowet’s eldritch community—fairies, ghouls, vampires, bogles and so forth—whose benevolent supervisor is Hel, the Norse goddess of the underworld. Now it’s November, and things are quieter, so Daisy Johanssen, hell-spawn daughter of a demon and a human mother, Hel’s enforcer and designated liaison to the Pemkowet Police Department, devotes her energies to unscrambling her sizzling but problematic personal life. First up is her partner, red-hot werewolf Officer Cody Fairfax; the lust is mutual, but traditionalist Cody wants a family and so must mate with another werewolf. And then there’s equally red-hot Stefan Ludovic, 600-year-old Bohemian knight and leader of the ghouls, or Outcasts, who, rejected by both heaven and hell, are immortal and feed on emotions. However, with Stefan away in Poland on private business, Scott Evans, a veteran with severe PTSD, complains to the Pemkowet PD that he’s being haunted by a witchlike, soul-sucking Night Hag. And then hell-spawn lawyer Daniel Dufreyne wallops the town with a massive lawsuit. The really bad news is that Dufreyne, having accepted his birthright, has demonic powers of persuasion. Daisy isn’t sure how that works: She’s refused to claim her own birthright despite frequent urgings from dad, the lesser demon Belphegor, lest she unleash Armageddon. Steamy sex, meddling monsters and a hell-spawn heroine with a volcanic temper: Even in the off season, there’s nothing dull about Pemkowet.
Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-451-46531-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: ROC/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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