This tale of otherworldly creatures maintains an impressive energy throughout, with an ending that makes reading Book 3 a...
Teen Toby Hoffman returns in Drummond’s (The One You Feed, 2013) supernatural thriller as a hunter apprentice whose first assignment pits him against a formidable warlock stealing powers.
Sixteen-year-old Toby was lucky to have survived his ordeal with werewolves in his hometown of Silver Falls, Oregon. But he’s caught the attention of the European Huntsman’s Network, which is looking for fresh recruits. Hunter Jack Steele convinces Toby to become a member, the teen’s sheriff father reluctantly approving the boy’s yearlong training overseas. Meanwhile, over in Ashland, Oregon, teen Natalie Sherwood stumbles upon a book in the attic—Sherwood Book of Incantations. She tries some spells with pal Brittany Richards, and wouldn’t you know it? The incantations work. Brittany and Natalie both hone their skills for a few months until Natalie’s auroras in the sky prove too public a display. The Network notices and, with Jack on assignment, sends still-in-training Toby on a relatively simple mission to warn the witch against future demonstrations. But it’s too late: warlock Eirik Devlin, who’s been tracking down witches and Wiccans to drain them of their abilities and life forces, has already spotted Natalie’s light show. Toby reunites with possible love interest Rachel Chochopi, in Ashland checking out a university and now with a power she wasn’t previously aware of. Unfortunately, Natalie’s newest hex may have awakened something as lethal as Eirik, if not more so. With nary a lycanthrope in sight, Drummond diversifies his series’ world to include all sorts of strange denizens. In addition to witches, there’s a hint of a Wendigo, a vampire that Jack’s been pursuing for nearly two decades, and something else revealed later in the book. Toby remains the hero who, like last time, is driven by his noble urge to save people, blaming himself for his mom’s car-accident death. But Natalie is a resounding character with a reasonable curiosity (is she a descendant of witches?) that makes her amateurish attempts at spell casting more discovery than recklessness. Seemingly endless confrontations occur, though the highlight is also the most comical: Toby has to battle mesmerized medieval role-playing college students—for real.
This tale of otherworldly creatures maintains an impressive energy throughout, with an ending that makes reading Book 3 a virtual necessity.Pub Date: Dec. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5176-1351-8
Page Count: 408
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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