An engaging series installment that points fantasy fans to grander action ahead.
This third volume of a YA series finds a sinister king growing more dangerous and a teenager who can track the fae torn in her allegiances.
Elise Thompson has the Sight. She’s always been able to detect the hidden feathers, pointy ears, or other characteristics of fae beings roaming the Mortal Realm. While working in the academic advising office on a college campus, she meets freshman Alexis Dearborn, a Halfling (half fae, half mortal) whose snake tattoo moves. When Elise compliments her body art, Alexis says, “I don’t have any tattoos.” Elise is used to her strange gift and doesn’t press the issue. She’s focused on her upcoming trip to Paris. The fae are allergic to iron and love older cities built mostly from stone. When she reaches Paris, she sees that her tour guide, Tommy, is an elf. He reports back to Sirius, leader of the elves, in Tír na nÓg (the Faery Realm) about the girl who can see past his glamour. The elves realize Elise could tip the scales in battling the Wild King, who’s collected an army of Solitary fae, each of whom has drifted from the civilized Courts and mutated. This pestiferous contingent has been hunting down Halflings and pressing them into service with wild magic. Battles in the Mortal streets for innocents are inevitable. In this latest installment of the Faery Realms series, Ridge (Divided Worlds, 2018, etc.) continues to skillfully blend action, mythology, and YA romance. Aside from numerous elves, the cast is a truly eclectic one—Elise is half Japanese and her best friend, Naomi, is an African-American with the skin condition vitiligo. Meanwhile, Finch, a female elf smitten with Elise, proves perpetually naive of the Mortal Realm and provides comedy relief. The bond among these girls is sweet, and would deftly carry the fantasy narrative minus the grisly Solitary fae (a mutated elf has mismatched eyes, “one a deep, solid red, the other a bulging, oozing yellow”). The author pushes her protagonists slowly but steadily toward a massive confrontation with the Wild King, which should be the central action in the next volume.
An engaging series installment that points fantasy fans to grander action ahead.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-359-23696-1
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: April 2, 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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
