A violent, dramatic, and ultimately hopeful debut despite some pacing issues.
In this contemporary horror/fantasy novel, a Canadian woman confronts her destiny when a demon claims her as his queen.
Kyra Parker, 35, has been trying to live a normal life with her husband, James Parker, and 8-year-old son, Xavier. She and her best friend, Alexis Bennett, are secretly witches, but Kyra doesn’t talk anymore about the bad dreams and strange events that she experienced in her childhood. Her attempt at normalcy ends when she’s kidnapped and brutally beaten by associates of Alastor, a mesmerizingly handsome demon, straight out of her nightmares, who wants her to rule the world alongside him. “Dreams of angels, demons, magic, war, blood, death—and the fear and hope that accompanied them” soon come flooding back to her, and she’s forced to accept his demands in order to protect family members and friends who’ve also been kidnapped. Thus Kyra becomes demonic herself, wreaking havoc with Alastor, bringing down governments, and building an army of released convicts. Soon her friends and their new allies, including a priest and two other mysterious figures, organize a resistance movement, guided by a prophecy that Kyra’s special heritage will allow her to overcome Alastor’s evil. But first, they must reclaim her from Alastor’s terrible influence. Debut author Tollefson often keeps up a quick pace in this story, which delivers plenty of gory supernatural action and a dash of eroticism. She also handles dialogue and description with facility. However, the large size of the cast sometimes slows things down, as does the fact that several characters have similar names (such as Alexis, Axel, and Alastor). It’s also problematic during fight scenes, as readers sometimes have to track half a dozen characters or more through complicated choreography. The sections that explain supernatural background information, such as magical rules and their exceptions, also drag. That said, the novel’s spirit of resistance to evil will resonate with many readers even if its graphically described scenes of blood, torture, and suffering don’t appeal to everyone.
A violent, dramatic, and ultimately hopeful debut despite some pacing issues.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9953086-1-9
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Lost Girl Creations
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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