Fans of historical thrillers that invoke the enduring spirit of Jack the Ripper will have fun, and Zdrok leaves things open...
In Zdrok’s debut, a young woman with mysterious powers seeks to unmask a vicious killer terrorizing 19th-century Paris.
Sixteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin writes about Paris’ unclaimed dead bodies that are on display for public viewing for her column at Le Petit Journal: The more detailed her descriptions, the better. When she sees the body of a young girl who has been brutally slashed, she’s horrified. Placing her hand against the glass barrier, she has a terrifying vision of what seems to be the actual murder. The killer, dubbed “the Dark Artist,” isn’t finished, and the viciousness of the murders grows. Nathalie is intrigued to find out that her Aunt Brigitte, who is in an asylum for acting on her own visions, was a patient of an infamous doctor who offered supernatural powers through blood transfusions. Craving normalcy, Nathalie initially rejects her own powers, but when the Dark Artist slaughters someone very close to her, she resolves to put a stop to his reign of terror. Zdrok explores the universal fascination with death, set among the darker corners of 1887 Paris, and the very idea of the morgue viewings (to which parents brought their children) is chilling. All characters are assumed white. Grisly, plot driven—and very creepy.
Fans of historical thrillers that invoke the enduring spirit of Jack the Ripper will have fun, and Zdrok leaves things open for a sequel. (recommended reading) (Paranormal historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9968-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Exciting concept; underwhelming execution.
Once a year in the city-island of Caldella, the powerful Witch Queen leaves her Water Palace to find her true love, whom she must drown to appease the dark tide of the ever hungry ocean.
Thomas Lin is the only boy who’s ever escaped—by convincing the last Witch Queen to drown herself instead. Ever since then, her sister, Eva, who is the new Witch Queen, has been unable to appease the dark tide—she’s felt nothing for the boys she’s sacrificed. When Thomas is chosen a second time, Lina, a town girl with a crush, decides to rescue Thomas from the Water Palace and volunteer as sacrifice to make sure both Thomas and her own brother stay safe. As Lina and Eva spend more time together, they realize that they have a surprising amount in common: their love for their siblings, their desperation to change the sacrificial system, and their desire for one another. The close third-person narration is focalized alternately through Lina and Eva, and although Lina’s perspective provides greater depth, the narrative voice for each is removed, with more telling than showing. Characters are racially ambiguous but often implied through skin tone to be nonwhite. Diverse sexualities and gender expressions are also implied, but heteroromanticism is disappointingly the default.
Exciting concept; underwhelming execution. (Fantasy. 16-18)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0998-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ostensibly a thriller, this debut misses its mark.
A college student tries to solve the murder in the wake of her own sexual assault.
Catherine, a first semester freshman, comes home reeling from a sexual assault that took place at a college party just before winter break. Shortly after her return, someone close to her is murdered in her Washington hometown. As the police investigation into the murder gets underway, Catherine becomes determined to do her own sleuthing, desperate for answers and an outlet for her trauma. She is helped by Henry, an old friend, and Andrew, a young man who shows up at her house one day to return the coat she left behind in her assailant’s room the night of her assault. The circumstances of Andrew’s untimely arrival on the scene provoke suspicions—was he involved in Catherine’s rape or even the murder? Yet Catherine seems implausibly quick to dismiss these suspicions out of a desire to bring Andrew into the fold due to his close connection to the local police department and thus, clues. The trio’s amateur detective work leaves much to be desired as far as plotting is concerned, jumping from hunch to hunch on minimal evidence, with the bulk of their investigation focusing on abuses of power within a local church. The sexual assault narrative is largely sidelined for the sake of a plodding mystery. All major characters are White.
Ostensibly a thriller, this debut misses its mark. (Mystery. 15-18)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12586-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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