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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
A learned, literary manifesto on academia—and its darkness.
A Ph.D. candidate in Analytical Magick tackles a new academic challenge: rescuing her advisor from Hell.
Alice Law is about to complete her graduate program at Cambridge under the auspices of Jacob Grimes, one of the foremost Magick scholars in the world. There’s just one problem: A spell gone wrong has led to Grimes’ sudden demise, and it may have been her fault. Alice feels bad about that, plus she needs Grimes to approve her dissertation and help her get a job, so she starts researching ways to travel to Hell. Her plans are interrupted by Peter Murdoch, one of Grimes' other students—"He was simply born brilliant…Alice couldn't stand him"—and she reluctantly agrees to join forces. Despite the accounts of Dante and the like, Hell is full of surprises, including (sometimes) a remarkable resemblance to a college campus. As Alice and Peter journey deeper, they encounter nefarious deities; twisted, once-human enemies; and Shades from Grimes’ past with their own agendas. Hell will test Alice and Peter in ways their academic careers have not, dredging up their pasts at Cambridge, their messy relationships with their advisor, and their distrust of each other—after all, academia is a cutthroat game. The stakes are high, with mortal souls on the line, as Alice grapples with the question of whether academia even matters. Kuang melds a fantasy adventure (don’t look too closely at the magic—that’s not the point) with a rumination on academia’s problems to create a new take on the journey through the underworld. Alice is deeply flawed but also deeply understandable, stuck in a system that damages her while making questionable choices that feed into the same system; this is a tightly constructed novel that aims a clear lens on academia, with both its faults and its virtues. The heady draw of discovery is ever-present, even if what Alice is discovering is Hell.
A learned, literary manifesto on academia—and its darkness.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9780063021471
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
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