An optimistic supernatural tale with both fresh and familiar ingredients.
In this YA fantasy, tragedy leads a young woman to a new life, unusual friends, and the truth about her recurring nightmares.
Eighteen-year-old Shanntal of Greyton isn’t sleeping well. Her nightmares involve pursuit through the woods, a red-eyed figure, and a craving for blood. She hopes that her best friend, 20-year-old Ginata, will provide relief. Her parents drop her off at her spunky friend’s home for a sleepover, and Ginata suggests playing with a Ouija board. When a spirit named Daray answers, the game quickly takes a dark turn. The Ouija planchette spells out “I-WILL-FIND-YOU,” and Shanntal assumes she’s the target. The next evening, Ginata’s parents drive Shanntal home only to find a dark, empty-looking residence. Inside, Shanntal’s parents and younger siblings have been killed—drained of blood. After a hospital stay, she moves in with Auntie Stephanie and Uncle Danier on Blackwood Island. Life is lonely there until she meets Jayce Fallon, who has “deep brown eyes” and a sympathetic ear. He takes her to Mystic Beach and introduces his own friends—Terran, Aiden, Makan, and Meriel—who happen to be the immortal avatars of earth, air, fire, and water. Shanntal is amazed but can’t help but wonder what she’s done to deserve such a remarkable crop of new friends. In her novel, Blyth (Stormy Saturday, 2015) teases the answer while crafting a tense romantic triangle with Jayce, the telepathic keeper of the elements; Daray, a vampire with ties to Shanntal’s past; and the protagonist, whose memories of childhood are hazy. While Jayce’s mental connection to Shanntal is intrusive and potentially domineering, he promises to behave himself and “give space whenever needed.” Their lives together could be perfect, and the author deftly conveys that first splash into love (“I felt lightheaded, and my lips burned hot”). But vampires, werewolves, and hoofed doomahorns complicate their situation. On Shanntal’s side, aside from elementals, are unicorns, fairies, and shape-shifters like Layla. Though Blyth takes readers through familiar genre terrain (like the Twilight series), Shanntal’s determination to be more than a damsel in distress is key to her appeal.
An optimistic supernatural tale with both fresh and familiar ingredients.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-64361-213-3
Page Count: 376
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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