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HELL’S MAELSTRÖM

An engaging tale of the walking dead and the likely start of a smashing series.

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In this debut novel, Texans fight to stay alive in the wake of an undead apocalypse.

After dead people start attacking the living, Bill McGuire plans to flee Fort Worth as quickly as he can. But after Bill saves Kim Leeds from her undead fiance, the two have no choice but to retreat to his apartment. Both want to check on relatives: Bill’s family is in New Jersey, and Kim has a sister at Bright Well University, which, according to the radio (their only news source), is one of the nearby safe havens. Bill convinces Kim to stay put, at least until the horde of undead outside his apartment abates. Over at the John Peter Smith Hospital’s psych ward, Grace is a patient who wisely absconds from an onslaught of the biting dead. She arms herself with a claw hammer and takes refuge at a seemingly abandoned house. Though she prefers the isolation, Grace must contend with the living and the dead as well as occasional voices. Bill and Kim likewise run into a fair share of fellow survivors, most of whom are rather contemptible or outright lethal. This may soon include Curtis Mintzer, who heads a cultish group that believes the undead uprising is a divine punishment called the Great Retribution. Holed up in a local high school, “congregation” members occasionally go out to scavenge supplies while some search for escape from Curtis’ group. All the while, the dead continue to roam with an insatiable appetite that threatens Texas—and possibly the entire world.

Redmond’s diverting novel checks off several genre staples. Bill and Kim, for example, spend a good deal of time fortifying his apartment and go days or weeks without seeing other living beings. And some humans prove just as deadly as the undead, if not worse. But though myriad characters populate the narrative, the author astutely spends the first half concentrating on Bill, Kim, and Grace. Their two stories aptly dramatize the characters’ increasing desperation as apartment complexes and houses, which initially seem like the safest places, eventually become hubs for violence and death. Bill and Kim are appealing leads who are generally surrounded by copious indisputable villains. Grace, in contrast, is gleefully complicated: She’s strong and capable, but readers ultimately learn that her residence at a psych ward was for a good reason. Redmond provides distinction among the bands of survivors, namely by how they refer to the undead. Curtis’ followers declare them “heathens” while Grace calls them “slayers,” after the media-dubbed killer the Night Slayer—and no one uses the z-word. Concise descriptions keep the story moving at a steady clip even when characters stay in one location for prolonged periods. At the same time, the author strays a bit from the traditional walking dead scenario with an added supernatural component, though it’s primarily ambiguous. This aspect is something a potential sequel could explore along with other elements, from a few surprises at the end to characters who remain a mystery.

An engaging tale of the walking dead and the likely start of a smashing series. (author’s note)

Pub Date: May 9, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-73320-160-5

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Bowker

Review Posted Online: July 25, 2020

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THE DARK MIRROR

From the Bone Season series , Vol. 5

Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.

In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.

After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.

Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025

ISBN: 9781639733965

Page Count: 576

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025

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A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.

In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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