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PASSAGE OF TIME

From the Seeker of Time series , Vol. 3

A pleasingly complex entry in a YA SF epic.

Buckler (Stillness of Time, 2018, etc.) continues the interplanetary adventures of superpowered twins in this third installment in a YA series.

Elara and Cyrus were born on the beautiful but turbulent planet Aroonyx but raised as normal high school students on Earth. Their guide and mentor, Jax, who has the power to instantly travel between the two worlds, explained to them that Aroonyx is divided into Solin and Lunin people, all ruled by brutal dictator Zenith. As this installment opens, it’s been six weeks since Jax abandoned Elara and Cyrus—an especially traumatic development for Elara, who’d fallen in love with Jax. The story finds Elara and Cyrus deeply embedded in the planet’s struggle against Zenith’s forces on Aroonyx, and, as Elara reflects, “defeating Zenith without Jax’s guidance seemed like a lost cause.” War is imminent, but, unsurprisingly, Jax doesn’t stay missing for long; his emotional connection with Elara is the cornerstone of the series, and he’s also a key YA character type: the brooding hero; at one point, Elara even says that he’d make “a great Jon Snow” from Game of Thrones. Along the way, Elara and Cyrus must also face off with members of Zenith’s elite Inner Circle. Overall, this series entry successfully amps up both the political intrigue and the personal drama. Buckler has always shown a good deal of skill with dialogue and pacing, but both are considerably stronger here. The book offers very little in the way of exposition for readers who may be encountering the series for the first time, but Buckler still manages to incorporate enough information to make it possible to jump right into the story, including an initial character list. The fact that matters of world-changing importance are linked to sappy individual romances can seem a bit silly at times; Elara even asks at one point, “Is it too late to save the people of Aroonyx? Is it too late to save my relationship with Jax?” But the book’s other pleasures more than compensate for this.

A pleasingly complex entry in a YA SF epic.

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-73310-570-5

Page Count: 682

Publisher: Gratus Publishing

Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2020

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SUMMER ISLAND

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

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LAST ORDERS

Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.

Pub Date: April 5, 1996

ISBN: 0-679-41224-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996

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