A rich, dreamy tale that’s infused with spirituality.
In Huddles’ fantasy novel inspired by South Asian culture, an abused princess finds love in the arms of a traveling musician and later undertakes a quest to achieve inner peace.
Twenty-one-year-old Asha is the last Raajakumaaree born to Palace Isha, a house that, by the decree of the royal Shaasak, sits in the subpolar forest 800 miles north of the Shaasak’s seat of government. However, she’s ceded her hereditary title to her abusive husband, Cabaan, whose only love is money. As Cabaan uproots the forest for profit, clearing it to plant the grotesque and deadly kuroop trees that feed on mineral deposits and harden into priceless wolfram-wood, Asha takes a substance known as dava to endure his marital attentions. When Asha isn’t numb, she’s miserable; it was she who instigated the marriage, and now she blames herself for the forest’s destruction. Then, on the eve of her 22nd birthday, she meets and falls in love with Ilarô, the royal geetakaar, or poetry singer. Their time together is soon cut short, but Ilarô’s influence on Asha is lasting. She sets out to petition the Shaasak to get a divorce, but will she survive the 800-mile journey and find the closure that she so desperately seeks? Huddles’ omniscient narrative frames Asha’s life as a fable told in the far future. This conceit effectively allows for a fairy tale–like melding of the real and the unreal as well as occasional breaking of the fourth wall. As a result, events feel heightened throughout; the characters—with the exception of Asha’s inventor cousin, Omala—tend toward familiar archetypes, and the second half of the book takes on a mystic bent that adds gravitas and slows the pace. The prose style is accomplished and often unrestrained, with simple dialogue but descriptive flourishes and lengthy musings on meanings and motivations: “the forces of impossibility and inevitability were working evenly on her, leaving no remainder.” The result is immersive and beautiful—a tragic romance that will appeal to lovers of diverse, original storytelling.
A rich, dreamy tale that’s infused with spirituality.Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73585-352-9
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Notable Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.
Self-assured, entertaining debut novel that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic.
The world’s not big enough for two wizards, as Tolkien taught us—even if that world is the shiny, modern one of the late 19th century, with its streetcars and electric lights and newfangled horseless carriages. Yet, as first-time novelist Morgenstern imagines it, two wizards there are, if likely possessed of more legerdemain than true conjuring powers, and these two are jealous of their turf. It stands to reason, the laws of the universe working thus, that their children would meet and, rather than continue the feud into a new generation, would instead fall in love. Call it Romeo and Juliet for the Gilded Age, save that Morgenstern has her eye on a different Shakespearean text, The Tempest; says a fellow called Prospero to young magician Celia of the name her mother gave her, “She should have named you Miranda...I suppose she was not clever enough to think of it.” Celia is clever, however, a born magician, and eventually a big hit at the Circus of Dreams, which operates, naturally, only at night and has a slightly sinister air about it. But what would you expect of a yarn one of whose chief setting-things-into-action characters is known as “the man in the grey suit”? Morgenstern treads into Harry Potter territory, but though the chief audience for both Rowling and this tale will probably comprise of teenage girls, there are only superficial genre similarities. True, Celia’s magical powers grow, and the ordinary presto-change-o stuff gains potency—and, happily, surrealistic value. Finally, though, all the magic has deadly consequence, and it is then that the tale begins to take on the contours of a dark thriller, all told in a confident voice that is often quite poetic, as when the man in the grey suit tells us, “There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.”
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-53463-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Intriguing worldbuilding can’t compensate for two-dimensional lead characters and a lackluster primary storyline.
The first installment of Stewart’s Hollow Covenant trilogy is set in a fantasy world where humans have destroyed the planet’s sustainability—and magic—and feuding gods do battle to restore the world.
After humans selfishly consume much of the magic on the planet, the Shattering changes everyone who lives in its various realms. Kluehnn—who called himself the “one true god”—makes a pact with his followers after hunting down and killing most of the other deities. He will systematically restore each realm back to its pristine environmental state, but half the population will be “altered to suit the new landscape.” The other half will be destroyed, their matter used to reshape the terrain. As the country of Kashan is being forcibly restored by a relentless black wall sweeping over the land, chaos ensues as people attempt to escape. Fifteen-year-old Hakara desperately tries to save herself and her little sister, Rasha, but they are separated in the turmoil. Hakara awakes safely in the neighboring realm, but her sister’s fate is unknown. An environmental cautionary tale blended with an impressively intricate fantasy backstory, the premise here is strong, as are the multiple intertwining storylines exploring a diversity of perspectives. The problem is with the major plot thread revolving around the two sisters’ search for one another—particularly Hakara’s obsession with crossing the barrier to the transformed Kashan to find Rasha, who may be dead or altered. The intensity is initially high, but it loses power quickly as secondary characters and storylines take over. Compared to fully realized and impressively complex characters like Thassir, an emotionally scarred god in disguise; Mullayne, an explorer in search of Unterra, the mythical subterranean home of the gods before the Shattering; and the courageous Sheuan Sim, who must use her wits and savvy to survive an impossible situation that puts her entire clan at risk, the sisters are unremarkable.
Intriguing worldbuilding can’t compensate for two-dimensional lead characters and a lackluster primary storyline.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564892
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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