A swords-and-sorcery tale that dazzles even when the dialogue fails to shine.
A young girl finds her destiny in ancient places in this debut fantasy novel.
Tess O’Connor is on vacation with her best friend, Molly Jackson, at the family home in Texas. While Tess loves spending time with Molly and away from school, she’s having trouble enjoying the trip because she’s worried about her brother, who was recently deployed on his first military combat mission. But she soon learns that her sibling isn’t the only one she should be concerned about. It turns out that Molly has a secret: she’s been visited by faeries her entire life and is now being summoned to the court of Queen Mab for some unknown purpose. And although Tess is hesitant to believe in faeries at first, it seems she may have some connection to the Small Folk as well, as they begin visiting her in dreams. Being part faerie has its benefits, like the chance to meet a handsome, motorcycle-riding Knight of the Unseelie Court and carry a magical sword. But it also comes with monsters, dark prophecies, and a mystical war in which Tess and Molly could become knights or merely pawns, depending on their choices. Fox draws on genuine Celtic faerie lore to create an imaginative world all her own. She also has something of a flair for description, as shown in passages like this: “The silence stretched taut between us, warmed by the morning sun. I pinched some dirt between my fingers, rubbing the grit against my skin as though that would scrub away the uneasiness hovering in my mind.” The book’s greatest weakness is its dialogue. Molly and Tess go back and forth between talking like average teenage girls and using sophisticated, thesaurus-enriched prose. The story is also fairly clichéd, with few surprises for fantasy fans. Still, many young readers will likely overlook these flaws for the sake of exploring a faerie land full of fun action and clever characters.
A swords-and-sorcery tale that dazzles even when the dialogue fails to shine.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4953-9467-6
Page Count: 454
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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