An exhilarating, exceptional story brimming with magic and zigzagging plot turns.
Having just learned she’s a witch, a 20-something joins an exclusive university to learn what happened to her mother, who disappeared years ago, in this fantasy mystery.
Californian Kana Klausen’s 21st birthday comes with a visit from a strange woman. Professor Claire White tells Kana that she is a witch, like her mother, Akemi Wakahisa. Before vanishing two decades prior, Akemi put a spell on her infant daughter that suppressed her magic until she turned 21. Kana can help uncover what happened to Akemi by attending Shipton University—a university for witches in Connecticut. Though Shipton is well known, witches have implemented two agencies to keep spellcasting a secret from the public. Kana takes a crash course in supernatural arts and, at Shipton, quickly picks up her mother’s incomplete, initially undisclosed research in hopes of learning Akemi’s fate. This entails an experiment involving other students, including Vanessa Lake. Despite Vanessa’s recurrent troublemaking, the National Council of Witches sends her to Shipton on a probationary basis; she wears a bracelet allowing the administration to monitor whatever magic she uses. Around the same time, a massless entity awakens and escapes a cage made of pure energy. This entity feeds on the pain of animals and humans but needs “the Promised”—a body that can sustain the entity’s presence. This is a specific individual, but it doesn’t know that person’s identity. However, it slowly regains power and memories via multiple murders, gradually making its way to Shipton, where the Promised is most assuredly Kana or someone close to her. Although this spirited tale begins as primarily a fantasy, it ultimately spins into a taut, surprising mystery. Kennedy (Lady Dread, 2019, etc.), for starters, gradually introduces distinctive characters. These include fellow student Night, who’s both Vanessa’s assigned tutor and Kana’s romantic interest; Vanessa’s roomie, Cassandra; and townie, Ian, who initiates a mostly physical relationship with Vanessa. As the story progresses, readers will anticipate some reveals, like the goal of Akemi’s research or which particular witch is possibly assisting the entity. But others are bombshells, especially during the blistering, twisty final act. Vanessa is a standout among a cast of robust, predominantly female characters. She’s led a hard life in Canada courtesy of her indifferent guardian, Ambrose Levesque. But while she’s rude at first (even to undeserving Night), her attitude eventually lessens in severity—though she remains strong, just as likely to punch someone in the face as use her more unusual powers. Kennedy writes clearly and concisely without lingering on more lurid moments, like sex scenes or bloody deaths. Nevertheless, the author’s best feat here is the description of the mysterious entity—whether it’s in an incorporeal form or occupying one of many bodies. In one scene, the entity flits between three individuals in a matter of seconds, part of a plan that further solidifies it as an unnerving, formidable villain. A sensational ending sets the stage for a sequel that impatient readers will crave.
An exhilarating, exceptional story brimming with magic and zigzagging plot turns.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-69175-873-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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