A little slow to start, but once it does, readers won’t want it to end.
Just when Ethan Chase thinks he’s done with Faery, he’s pulled back in.
Fresh from his adventures in The Lost Prince (2012), Ethan thinks his biggest concern is his new girlfriend Kenzie’s father, who reasonably objects to his leukemia-stricken teenage daughter disappearing and running off to New York with Ethan. But then Ethan’s half sister, Meghan, the Iron Queen, comes to him because her son (Ethan’s nephew), Keirran, has gone missing. Soon after, Keirran’s beloved, the exiled Summer fey Annwyl, seeks Ethan’s help—she too can’t find Keirran, and as the Fade is quickly claiming her, she wishes to see him once more before dying. The search for Keirran brings Annwyl and Ethan, who’s trying unsuccessfully to protect Kenzie from the fey world (a forced, predictable moment), to the New Orleans goblin market and right into the thick of things. The plot picks up, sweeping the heroes through temporary, dark-magic solutions, various otherworlds and encounters with familiar characters. Ethan and Keirran face parallel romantic storylines, each in love with someone facing imminent death, though Keirran’s takes center stage as they struggle to save Annwyl. Additionally, a prophecy that’s been hinted at finally comes into play at the climax, bringing major implications for characters and worlds alike—a major cliffhanger.
A little slow to start, but once it does, readers won’t want it to end. (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-373-21091-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Sanderson (Legion, 2018, etc.) plainly had a ball with this nonstop, highflying opener, and readers will too.
Eager to prove herself, the daughter of a flier disgraced for cowardice hurls herself into fighter pilot training to join a losing war against aliens.
Plainly modeled as a cross between Katniss Everdeen and Conan the Barbarian (“I bathed in fires of destruction and reveled in the screams of the defeated. I didn’t get afraid”), Spensa “Spin” Nightshade leaves her previous occupation—spearing rats in the caverns of the colony planet Detritus for her widowed mother’s food stand—to wangle a coveted spot in the Defiant Defense Force’s flight school. Opportunities to exercise wild recklessness and growing skill begin at once, as the class is soon in the air, battling the mysterious Krell raiders who have driven people underground. Spensa, who is assumed white, interacts with reasonably diverse human classmates with varying ethnic markers. M-Bot, a damaged AI of unknown origin, develops into a comical sidekick: “Hello!...You have nearly died, and so I will say something to distract you from the serious, mind-numbing implications of your own mortality! I hate your shoes.” Meanwhile, hints that all is not as it seems, either with the official story about her father or the whole Krell war in general, lead to startling revelations and stakes-raising implications by the end. Stay tuned. Maps and illustrations not seen.
Sanderson (Legion, 2018, etc.) plainly had a ball with this nonstop, highflying opener, and readers will too. (Science fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-55577-0
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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