A high-stakes fantasy heist novel that readers may find hard to put down.
In Linde’s paranormal thriller, a woman goes on a dangerous quest to retrieve a rare object.
Thirteen years ago, murderous monsters of all kinds appeared from the shadows to murder countless city dwellers, including in Kierse McKenna’s home of New York City. To survive, Kierse (“It’s like Pierce but with a K,” she says) joined her late mentor’s thieving guild and became a master thief. Three years ago, the Monster Treaty was put in place, finally ending the ongoing violence and allowing humans and monsters to live together. When Kierse’s benefactor sends her on a mission to steal a diamond ring, she unwittingly finds herself inside the home of a mysterious monster named Graves. Breaking into the house means that Kierse has also broken the Monster Treaty, but Graves, after seeing an unusual necklace around her neck, offers her a job. The warlock wants her to steal a rare object hidden under the city in a place called Third Floor, which is protected by an unbreakable security system and guarded by the vilest creatures. Kierse agrees, locking herself into a bargain with Graves and entering a world of chaos involving monster gangs, magic, and a rivalry spanning hundreds of years. Throughout Linde’s lively fantasy, Kierse struggles to keep her two best friends, Gen and Ethan, safe, and she also begins to uncover important secrets about herself. The author also effectively weaves a steamy romance into the fast-moving plot. Although the story is mostly told from Kierse’s perspective, it’s occasionally broken up by short chapters titled “Interlude,” which offer intriguing insights into other characters’ thoughts. The creative premise of a monster-filled New York makes for rich, detailed worldbuilding (“Another consequence of monsters in the public eye were the trolls who managed the subway entrances”), and little mysteries sprinkled throughout the novel give readers space to piece together the truth.
A high-stakes fantasy heist novel that readers may find hard to put down.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781649374073
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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