by Jules Watson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 2005
Mightily appealing.
Adventure in ancient Scotland that’s a potent mix of historical fiction, druid-tinged fantasy, and romance.
With nods to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, newcomer Watson presents an ancient Scotland peopled by strong-minded women and powered by ancient, goddess-based magic. Redheaded Rhiann is the last of the royal line of the Epidii tribe, the tribe’s “Ban Cre,” charged with producing an heir; she’s a healer, trained in her art in the all-female environs of the Sacred Isle; and she’s an unwilling rival for her tribe’s power-hungry chief druid. She’s also one of the few local leaders who can see that the Roman army is a force that must be reckoned with; most other tribal headmen are counting on the geographic isolation of Scotland (here called “Alba”) to protect it from General Agricola’s advancing red-clad menace. Rhiann has enough vision to realize that unless the tribes of Alba band together, Agricola will pick them off one by one. Luckily, her husband, one Eremon of Erin (Ireland), who was chosen to be her partner in an arranged marriage, is in accord. Together, the two prepare to convince the other kings of the wisdom of partnership. Meanwhile, there’s the difficult business of offspring: Rhiann had a bad experience with raiders and can’t stand a man’s touch. And Eremon has troubles of his own: he’s hiding the fact that he and his 20 loyal followers were banished from Erin by his treacherous uncle. There are plenty of plotlines, but Watson keeps them nicely dovetailed and tightly laced with romantic tension, treachery, and cliffhangers aplenty. She’s done her homework, boning up on Tacitus for historical detail and verisimilitude, but there’s imagination here, too, and the work’s all the better for it.
Mightily appealing.Pub Date: March 31, 2005
ISBN: 1-58567-620-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2005
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by Leigh Bardugo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2019
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by Leigh Bardugo ; illustrated by Dani Pendergast
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by Kevin Hearne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 2020
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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by Kevin Hearne
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