An epic character-driven story with a heroine who can travel through time.
Supernatural storks face unexpected obstacles in their quest to unify earthlings in Anderson van Berkel’s debut, which blends fantasy and world history.
Born during the Bronze Age, snowy white stork Zendala has the ability to travel through time. She rescues women of varying eras and lands from certain death, including a queen and a Christian martyr. They’re all recruits for the White Storks of Mercy, supernatural avian creatures whose purpose is bringing peace to the world. Each woman transforms into a stork, but all can change back to humans (in that form, they’re called the Merciful Ones). Zendala confers immortality on them, but that doesn’t make them immune to such things as distrust, which threatens to shatter their unity. Their greatest menace, however, may be Reba, Zendala’s Siamese cat sister. She blames Zendala for her near death and for splitting “the Mischief Makers,” the rabble-rousing duo of Reba and pharaoh Maatkare Hatshepsut. Reba, who has the power of persuasion, plots revenge against her sister. Her morphing ability excludes bird or human forms, but she befriends a druidess who can help with the latter, giving Reba a new way to make mischief. Anderson van Berkel’s tale is dense with plot and characters. Zendala and Reba, for example, have a complicated history; Reba’s antagonism started when the two shared their stork mother’s egg while surrounded by Egyptian deities. As the author has sequels planned, this book centers on Zendala’s amassing her team and only touches on her “humanitarian mission.” Still, the extensive cast impresses, from apprentice stork Iona to the sisters’ father, Egyptian sun god Re. The story is rich in history as well; the White Storks traverse ever changing countries and bump elbows (or wings) with real-life figures like Joan of Arc and Napoleon. The author rounds out her novel with indelible imagery, such as a sunset that “painted the sky the color of ripe nectarines.”
An epic character-driven story with a heroine who can travel through time.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-95780-7
Page Count: 345
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A new and contemplative take on the vampire novel.
Following a vampire across more than 200 years, this novel considers “whether this world and life in it is a kindness or an unkindness, a blessing or a curse.”
At the age of 10, Anna faces illness and death daily as an epidemic sweeps through her town. After the deaths of her father and brother, and when she's at her sickest, her grandfather arrives. Just as she’s about to succumb to the illness that killed her whole family, he transforms her into a vampire like himself. When she asks him why he did it, he replies: “This world, my dear child, all of it, right to the very end if there is to be an end, is a gift. But it’s a gift few are strong enough to receive. I made a judgment that you might be among those strong few, that you might be better served on this side of things than the other. I thought you might find some use for the world, and it for you.” The years that follow are difficult and often wrought with loss for Anna. She lives many lives over the centuries and eventually takes on the name Collette LaSange, opening a French preschool in Millstream Hollow, New York. Chapters alternate between Anna’s life beginning in the 1830s and her current life in 1984 as Collette. Notable points of tension arise when Collette tries unsuccessfully to sate her hunger, which is becoming increasingly unbearable, and as her interest in the artistic growth of a student named Leo deepens. Through decadently vivid prose—which could have been streamlined at times—this hefty novel meditates on major themes such as life, love, and death with exceptional acumen. The final questions in the book—“How presumptuous is the gift of life? What arrogance is implicit in the act of love that calls another into existence?”—serve as an anchor to meditations on these themes found throughout.
A new and contemplative take on the vampire novel.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781250856760
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.
When you deal with the darkness, everything has a price.
“Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Adeline tried to heed this warning, but she was desperate to escape a wedding she didn’t want and a life spent trapped in a small town. So desperate that she didn’t notice the sun going down. And so she made a deal: For freedom, and time, she will surrender her soul when she no longer wants to live. But freedom came at a cost. Adeline didn’t want to belong to anyone; now she is forgotten every time she slips out of sight. She has spent 300 years living like a ghost, unable even to speak her own name. She has affairs with both men and women, but she can never have a comfortable intimacy built over time—only the giddy rush of a first meeting, over and over again. So when she meets a boy who, impossibly, remembers her, she can’t walk away. What Addie doesn’t know is why Henry is the first person in 300 years who can remember her. Or why Henry finds her as compelling as she finds him. And, of course, she doesn’t know how the devil she made a deal with will react if he learns that the rules of their 300-year-long game have changed. This spellbinding story unspools in multiple timelines as Addie moves through history, learning the rules of her curse and the whims of her captor. Meanwhile, both Addie and the reader get to know Henry and understand what sets him apart. This is the kind of book you stay up all night reading—rich and satisfying and strange and impeccably crafted.
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8756-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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