Refined swords-and-sorcery in the mold of J.R.R. Tolkien and Lord Dunsany.
In this debut fantasy, heroes and villains inspired by Norse deities prepare for battle over an enchanted sword.
To Aerion de Lorka, son of Lord Kent, sword fighting is as beautiful as music. On the morning of his seventh birthday, he enters the nearby temple of Tyr, the Norse god of courage and justice in battle. There, he decides to train endlessly to become a paladin—a holy knight who travels wherever his god bids. Meanwhile, in the “poorest part of one of the meanest towns in all the land,” destiny shapes a boy named Dar. He’s physically fit and mentally cunning, and a life of thievery and abuse only sharpens these traits. He creates an alter ego called the Purple Mask and plots his own father’s downfall. Once on his own, he discovers a shrine to Loki, Norse god of mischief and revenge. As Dar agrees to become that deity’s foul instrument, Aerion overcomes his slow beginnings as a squire. By age 18, he’s the kingdom’s most capable and admired knight. He’s accepted into the Brotherhood of the Blade to help protect Tyr’s legacy and the hero’s sword, created by Odin himself. Mortenson does an excellent job of keeping the gods in the background and their human agents on a steep, sprawling collision course. Throughout the narrative, Aerion and Dar each assemble like-minded colleagues, including the wizard Marseilles, the elf priestess Treena, and the poisoner Tox, among others. Tension mounts as Loki manipulates his greedy acolytes into stealing Tyr’s sword. Mortenson’s prose has a straightforward, lyrical quality in lines such as, “Shadow elves…looked as if someone had carved away at the smooth edges and made a weapon out of a thing of beauty.” Frequently, the theme of perfectionism pops up, and as Aerion becomes excessively devoted to prayer and obsessed with his own shortcomings, Tyr must reignite the paladin’s confidence: “Too fine an edge blunts too quickly.” After a cascade of action at the end, the story leaves room for further adventures.
Refined swords-and-sorcery in the mold of J.R.R. Tolkien and Lord Dunsany.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4602-4347-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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