Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake
When a Romeo and Juliet mobster romance just isn't enough.
A year after a terrible experience, 17-year-old Rosa Alcantara is leaving home. She's left Brooklyn for Sicily, where she will be joining her sister in the family business: organized crime. An unlikable petty thief, Rosa thinks she's prepared for joining Cosa Nostra. But there are reasons beyond the Mafia to fear her ancestral home. Her attraction to Alessandro Carnevare, the scion of a rival (and stronger) Mafia house, can only get her into trouble. Both the Alcantaras and Carnevares are hiding an unbelievable secret. Alessandro, like the rest of his family, has a feline form: a monstrous panther. Meanwhile, Rosa discovers that the Alcantaras transform into enormous snakes. The shapeshifting makes for a more deadly rivalry—or a more twisted romantic pairing. On top of everything else, there's a kidnapped mob schoolgirl, a murdered mother, an attempted coup, family betrayals, a tragic lesbian relationship and whispers of a conspiracy, all told in choppy, infelicitous prose. (It's possible the clunkiness of the prose may be laid at the feet of the unidentified translator from the German.) A smaller subset of plot threads might have allowed room for Rosa to grow into a more than just a survivor.
Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake . (Paranormal romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-200606-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Deeply enmeshed with a magical world and its impossible choices before readers ever meet her, Ava and her wholly believable...
An indentured magical assassin just wants a little peace with her chosen family.
Firebug Ava, who can set fires with her mind, has been on the run her whole life. When Ava’s firebug mother became pregnant, she did the unthinkable and fled from the supernatural mob, raising Ava on the road for years, always in hiding. But nobody escapes the Coterie alive, and Ava’s mom was no exception. Orphaned, Ava lives with her mother’s human childhood sweetheart in rural Maine. She’s allowed to stay in Maine only on the condition of her loyalty to Venus, the Coterie’s bloodthirsty vampire leader. Along with her two best friends, also unwilling Coterie employees, Ava’s an unpaid assassin. Ava, Ezra, a werefox, and Lock, a handsome dryad, are Venus’ enforcers, putting down any supernaturals foolish enough to challenge Venus’ power. As long as Ava does the bloody work, she and her loved ones are left alone—but what happens when Venus demands something Ava simply won’t do? Ava’s exhausted despair, her love for her found family and her coldly practical choices are pre-existing conditions, and the moral decisions she makes are surprisingly nuanced.
Deeply enmeshed with a magical world and its impossible choices before readers ever meet her, Ava and her wholly believable despair are a refreshing change from the endless parade of naïve heroines found elsewhere . (Fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9862-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
This plotless, grandiloquent slice of life will appeal to readers working their way up to Ayn Rand and Tom Robbins.
A stylized, meandering sequel to King Dork (2006).
Tom Henderson’s new adventure begins where King Dork ended: in 1999, after a brutal tuba attack preceding the Christmas vacation of Tom’s sophomore year. Despite his brief sexual successes before this volume’s opening, he’s still alone but for his only friend, Sam. Their dork solidarity against the “normal” tormenting thugs of Hillmont High is doomed, however. The fall semester’s scandals have led to Hillmont’s closure, and the two boys are off to separate high schools. Now Sam’s listening to getting-the-girl motivational tapes, giving Tom advice steeped in toxic misogyny. Tom’s disturbed by Clearview High’s seemingly sincere school spirit; it reminds him of the perky normalcy of Happy Days or Grease. Tom gets his first girlfriend and discovers that getting along with others is not all it’s cracked up to be. He’s a CD-hating, vinyl-worshipping proto-hipster who, along with Sam, refers to his favorite albums by catalog number—“I actually might like EKS 74071 better than EKS 74051”—guaranteeing that neither their classmates nor the novel’s readers will be able to participate in the conversation. Meticulously described historical elements—Tom’s sister’s obsession with the family landline, the boys’ hatred of modern CD music formats, Sam’s dorky, holstered, clunky cellphone—are conspicuous in this otherwise modern-seeming story.
This plotless, grandiloquent slice of life will appeal to readers working their way up to Ayn Rand and Tom Robbins. (Historical fiction. 14-16)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-73618-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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