A masterful historical fantasy that informs as well as enthralls.
This thriller sees a businessman with a dark past battle a magician determined to topple Haiti’s spiritual legacy.
Charles Redmond manages an import/export business in Washington, D.C. Joseph de Alverado, one of his clients, is an unsettling eccentric. He orders what seem like “religious temple furnishings” and can open a sealed shipping crate barehanded. When Charles dreams of Joseph as a demon, he visits his psychiatrist. Dr. Sanantha Mauwad, who lived in Haiti as a child, recognizes on Charles’ leather wallet the symbol for Papa Legba, the Voodou Jesus figure. She writes an antidepressant prescription and asks if Charles has been to the Caribbean. He says no. Meanwhile, in a Haitian temple, Joseph reports to Silas Alverado, his “master.” Silas may look like a mere elderly man, but he’s Chosen—he “died one hundred generations ago” as Royarna, the High Priest of Amun. The magician plans to “re-enshrine His Dark Majesty” Osiris and convert Haitian Voodou followers into worshippers of the faded Egyptian deity. Silas’ demonic work takes him to the British Museum in London and a tomb near the site of ancient Thebes, among other locations, where corpses pile up in his wake. Charles, who lied about having been to the Caribbean, implores the Voodou love goddess Erzulie to protect him from Joseph. Hartlove (Daughter Cell, 2013, etc.) fashions a riveting blend of history, religion, and horror in this briskly paced series opener. He carries readers from grounded moments to dreamlike fantasy with steely ease, as in the line “A thousand birds and insects all noisily took flight as the ground buckled, the trees swayed, and the terrain undulated as the Serpent of Creation slid through the jungle floor.” The magical Silas performs some truly grisly acts, including possessing a teenage girl and using her to seduce and then murder an Egyptian guard. The author balances his ferocious imagination with historical passion, giving Charles a tragic, though captivating, backstory as a Haitian death squad member. Sanantha remains the heart of the tale, offering Charles human support as Silas challenges the devil in a potentially world-rending finale.
A masterful historical fantasy that informs as well as enthralls.Pub Date: July 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949139-58-7
Page Count: 269
Publisher: Paper Angel Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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