McElwain’s cross between a Regency romance and a time-travel fantasy combines a mediocre mystery with an exposé of many of...
An FBI agent struggles to adjust when she accidentally time travels back to the Regency period in England.
Kendra Donovan fell back in time during an operation at Aldridge Castle, and when she wound up 200 years before she started out, she became the ward of the Duke of Aldridge, who knows her secret and is fascinated by her knowledge of the unimaginable future. Kendra proved her worth by saving the hide of the duke’s nephew, Alec, Lord Sutcliffe, who was accused of murdering his former mistress (A Twist in Time, 2017). When her repeated attempts to return home fail, she and the duke travel to one of his smaller estates in Lancashire, where he hopes she’ll become more adept in adjusting to the mores of 1815. Caught in a fog, they pass a group of Luddites just before bedding down at an inn. The magistrate and constable to whom the duke reports the group’s presence plan to inspect the nearby cotton mill when they get news that the equipment has been damaged and the mill manager, Mr. Stone, murdered. Constable Jameson is ready to blame the Luddites until Kendra points out new evidence. The duke sends for Alec, who’s become Kendra’s lover, while Kendra interviews Mr. Biddle, the mill’s assistant manager, and its owner, Lord Nathan Bancroft, the Earl of Langfrey, a man with a mysterious past. Stone, a poor manager with a bad reputation, was much disliked. When Stone’s wife is tortured and murdered, Kendra wonders what the killer is so desperate to recover. Frustrated by her powerlessness as a woman, she must rely on the duke for entree despite her superior investigative skills. Even so, she solves the crimes while ruffling feathers along the way.
McElwain’s cross between a Regency romance and a time-travel fantasy combines a mediocre mystery with an exposé of many of the inequities of the era.Pub Date: July 3, 2018
ISBN: 9-781-68177-766-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Sure, the premise is altogether improbable. But, that said, there’s good fun to be had here, even for those who might wish...
William Shakespeare, vampire hunter.
Well, not exactly. But, thanks to the magic of time travel, Harkness’ (A Discovery of Witches, 2011) latest finds witch and Oxford professor Diana Bishop and her lover, scientist and vampire Matthew Clairmont, at the tail end of Elizabethan England, when Shakespeare’s career is about to take off. There, by happenstance, they meet Christopher Marlowe, who commands an uncommonly rich amount of data about the ways of the otherworld. Asked why the odd couple should attract attention, he remarks matter-of-factly, “Because witches and wearhs are forbidden to marry,” an exchange that affords Diana, and the reader, the chance to learn a new word. Diana and Matthew talk a lot. They argue a lot, too, quibbling about the strangest things: “ ‘You are a vampire. You’re possessive. It’s who you are,’ I said flatly, approaching him in spite of his anger. ‘And I am a witch. You promised to accept me as I am—light and dark, woman and witch, my own person as well as your wife.’ ” But then they get to have extremely hot—indeed, unnaturally hot, given the cold blood of the undead—makeup sex, involving armoires and oak paneling and lifted petticoats and gripped buttocks. Meanwhile, Kit Marlowe gets to do some petticoat lifting of his own, even if his adventures lead him to a Bedlam populated by all kinds of unfortunate souls, from a few ordinary wackaloons of yore to a small army of daemons, witches, vampires and other exemplars of the damned and doomed. Will Shakespeare comes onto the scene late, but there’s good reason for that—and maybe a little fodder for the Edward de Vere conspiratorial crowd, too. Clearly Harkness has great fun with all this, and her background as a literature professor gives her plenty of room to work with, and without, an ounce of pedantry.
Sure, the premise is altogether improbable. But, that said, there’s good fun to be had here, even for those who might wish for a moratorium on books about vampires, zombies, witches and other things that go bump in the night.Pub Date: July 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02348-6
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
A fun, contemporary adventure that cares about who we are as humans, especially when faced with remarkable events.
A young graphic artist inspires worldwide hysteria when she accidentally makes first contact with an alien.
Famous multimedia wunderkind Green is brother to that John Green, so no pressure or anything on his debut novel. Luckily, he applies wit, affection, and cultural intelligence to a comic sci-fi novel suitable for adults and mature teens. It’s endearing how fully he occupies his narrator, a 20-something bi artist named April May who is wasting her youth slaving at a Manhattan startup. On her way home late one night, April encounters an armored humanoid figure, which turns out to be alien in nature—“And I don’t mean alien like ‘weird,’" she says. She phones her videographer friend Andy Skampt, who posts on YouTube a funny introduction to the robot she dubs Carl. April’s life is turned upside down when the video goes massively viral and immovable Carls appear in cities around the world. After they discover a complex riddle involving the Queen song “Don’t Stop Me Now,” the mystery becomes a quest for April; Andy; April’s roommate/kind-of-sort-of girlfriend, Maya; a scientist named Miranda; and April’s new assistant, Robin, to figure out what the Carls are doing here. “None of us older than twenty-five years old, cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard, planning our press strategy for the announcement of First Contact with a space alien,” says April. April and her friends are amiable goofballs and drawn genuinely for their age and time. Meanwhile, the story bobs along on adolescent humor and otherworldly phenomena seeded with very real threats, not least among them a professional hater named Peter Petrawicki and his feral followers. Green is clearly interested in how social media moves the needle on our culture, and he uses April’s fame, choices, and moral quandaries to reflect on the rending of social fabric. Fortunately, this entertaining ride isn’t over yet, as a cliffhanger ending makes clear.
A fun, contemporary adventure that cares about who we are as humans, especially when faced with remarkable events.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4344-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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