A series starter for readers who like their romances with hard-charging plots and light character development.
Nash’s (Looking for a Hero, 2016, etc.) energetic prose drives this supernatural, erotic romance that offers a new twist on the Arthurian legend.
This first novel in a planned series sets the stage for a clash of realms, beginning with the coming-of-age of Arthur Camulus. Arthur, 19, is the only living, direct descendant of Merlin, “the most powerful Nephil ever to walk the Earth.” As a Nephil—the offspring of a fallen angel and a human—Arthur is scheduled to activate his magical Druid powers at age 20. But before that happens, he goes rogue to escape Mab, his clan’s alpha, who has plans to enslave him. Arthur’s lover, Cybele, joins him in Wales,* where he aims to develop his powers independently, following a solo “Ordeal” with “No guide, no mentor.” He attracts the attention of not only Mab, but also the three archangels who run Heaven while God naps—Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel—and Vaclav Dusek, the alpha of a rival clan. Dusek furthers his aim to unleash demonic forces into the world while Raphael advances his own independent agenda. Arthur and Cybele, along with Cybele’s twin, Luc, escape Dusek and are safe in a London apartment—as long as they stay inside and don’t do magic. But with “hellfiends” swarming the world, how long can that last? Erotic scenes dot the novel, and the sparkiest involve Mab and her accoutrements (“A ball gag….A massive strap-on dildo”). The foreplay between Arthur and Cybele is sometimes painful to read, though, as when her nails “barely” scrape “the tip of his engorged penis.” Characters occasionally get convenient amnesia, apparently to advance the plot: “How could she have forgotten?” thinks Cybele when her blood accidentally triggers Arthur’s demonic side. The worldbuilding is generally strong, however, and it will sweep readers through the story. Taut prose prevails throughout: “Luc flicked his wrists, calling his hellfire. Sparks of green gathered in his palms. One good blast combusted the corpse. Flesh and bone burned.” That said, the overused term “magic” could have used some fresh alternatives.
A series starter for readers who like their romances with hard-charging plots and light character development.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-941017-01-2
Page Count: 370
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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