An appealing series opener that promises more romance and fae intrigue to come.
In this YA fantasy, a dedicated heroine visits a faery realm in search of a missing friend.
Junior year of high school has just ended for Michigan teens Alexis Dearborn and Molly Connolly. One night, they sneak from Alexis’ house to a party in a wealthy neighborhood. Alexis isn’t the partying type, so at the home of rich girl Cassi, she hops in the pool for some alone time. But a spiky-haired boy begins asking her strange questions, like whether or not Molly has any siblings or cousins. After a few days attached at the hip, Alexis and Molly end up at the latter’s home, where the teen has a fight with her mother over borrowing the car. Alexis knows her parents won’t mind if her best friend stays with them until things cool down, so Molly packs a bag. The next morning, Molly is nowhere to be found. Without a note or text to go on, Alexis believes that her friend has been taken. After the police imply that Molly ran away, Alexis hunts for her in the nearby woods. She meets two shape-shifters, a female fox named Jynx and a male wolf named Jaxith, who agree to escort her to Tír na nÓg—the Faery Realm—to search for Molly. Opening a new series, Ridge (The Other Side of the Story, 2018, etc.) uses faery folklore to explore ideas of friendship, loyalty, and self-confidence. When Jaxith agrees to guide and protect Alexis, he also asks that her vibrant red curls be his reward. She readily trades what some might call her finest feature for a chance to find Molly, even if her friend is in the fae world by choice. The ways in which male characters—including Sirius the elf and Keir, prince of the Dark Court—might claim Alexis as a prized consort are by turns foul and alluring. Throughout, the author shows a flair for celebrating fae oddities, as when Alexis sees someone apparently wearing peacock feathers only to realize that they’re growing from the person. Readers should find the narrative well-balanced, with characters and concepts never inundating the plot.
An appealing series opener that promises more romance and fae intrigue to come.Pub Date: March 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-365-83907-8
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2018
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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