A fun, if flawed, treatment of myth and mystery.
A debut novel that imagines a modern world where ancient Greek deities still find themselves entangled in human affairs.
Selene DiSilva’s calling is avenging the wrongs perpetrated on women by men. She’s been doing it for thousands of years—ever since she lived in ancient Greece and was known by the name of Artemis. When a Columbia professor is found murdered in what appears to be a revival of ancient cult practices, Selene realizes she has a new challenge on her hands. And though she usually works alone, the murdered woman’s colleague (and ex-lover) professor Theodore Schultz becomes her unlikely sidekick: Selene must draw on his knowledge of the ancient world to help solve the mystery of the ritual murder before the ceremony’s 10-day window of time closes. This isn’t the only race against time Selene faces. As the Greek gods fade from cultural memory, and the realms they stand for (hunting, the hearth) become obsolete, she must try to catch the killer before her powers—and her life—fade away. Brodsky is clearly having fun writing this novel; one can feel her relish on the page in imagining what Greek gods like Hades, the God of the Underworld, or Hermes, the messenger god, might be doing in the 21st century. Consequently, the novel’s greatest strength is its detailed and engaging use of both widely known and more obscure elements of ancient Greek life and myth. However, lovers of ancient myth know that, despite the way mythological figures are often oversimplified to represent a few attributes—philandering, mighty Zeus, for example—these characters are usually more complicated than they seem on the surface. While Brodsky has fun with the cartoonish aspects of the gods' personalities, these broad strokes unfortunately extend to the novel’s human characters, too, which create portraits that border on stereotype.
A fun, if flawed, treatment of myth and mystery.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-34718-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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