A savage YA read filled with fish men, cutting wit, and supernatural gore.
The first volume of a paranormal horror series delivers a tale about a New England town in the grip of a monstrous cult.
Fourteen-year-old Abigail Thorndike, of Arkham, Massachusetts, lives on the rich side of town. As September arrives, she’s set to enter the prestigious Arkham Academy. Joining Abby will be her best friends, Sindy Endicott and Nate Baxter. As a final summer bash, the trio attends a carnival. There, they encounter a clique of the town’s rich and powerful scions—Bryce Coffin, Charity Duckworth, and Eleazar Grant—among others. Surprisingly, the cool kids allow Abby and her friends to tag along as they raise a ruckus inside the carnival. Later, as Abby is pressured to drink alcohol, her head begins pounding. She escapes the scene only to end up in a mirrored fun house. Inside, she sees nightmare versions of herself before blacking out from intense pain. She wakes up at home in bed and has little choice but to leave for her first day at Arkham Academy. She continues to experience “dizziness and loathing,” but this time after blacking out, she awakens to find the school infested with vile, disc-mouthed fish men. These fearsome creatures have “spines and fins sprouted in irregular patches” across their exposed skin, “colorless and milky” eyes, and “ragged and bloody red” gills. Robinson (The Last Son of Ahriman, 2015, etc.) and Rodriguez (Skylanders: Light in the Dark, 2016) make superb use of author H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional town of Arkham as well as the Deep Ones (anthropoid fish). Commentary on class divisions is plentiful because Nate’s family lives across town, and he and his father work as groundskeepers for the wealthy families. Igniting this page-turner, however, is the mystery behind the Daughters of Arkham, a charitable organization of blue-blooded women, most of whom seem to be widows. While teen drama engulfs Abby, she’s also cursed as the only one who can see Arkham’s fish men. And though the characters are young adults, their liberal use of words like “slut” marks this story for older teens. The end cleverly wraps around an early detail, broadening the saga for its next installment.
A savage YA read filled with fish men, cutting wit, and supernatural gore.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9895744-1-9
Page Count: 428
Publisher: Th3rd World Studios
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
