An impending apocalypse provides a compelling backdrop for romance in this page-turning first installment of a new YA series.
It’s almost the end of the world as we know it, and 17-year-old Ember Shay O’Meara feels fine. If anything, she feels a little too fine. A fiery car crash recently killed her parents but left her unscathed, without a single scar to show for it. Per her parents’ wishes, guardianship shifted to her family friend Ila, who lives in a small Tennessee town in the Smoky Mountains. There’s a reason Ila is in charge; it turns out that both she and Ember are Watchers: special, “half human” creatures descended from angels. Ember must learn everything she can about her kind from Ila, but her supernatural education doesn’t excuse her from having to attend high school. There, her good looks gain her the acceptance of the cool girls and the attention of the football team’s quarterback. However, Ember falls in love with a handsome, half-human “Demon” named Sawyer McCrae, who lives with other evil creatures in a high-walled compound in town. Sparks fly, sometimes quite literally, as Ember and Sawyer battle their impulses—and better judgment—to figure out whether they can be together. The question becomes more urgent as the apocalypse looms large in their future. Hopkins (Lamb to the Slaughter, 2014, etc.) expertly weaves her plotlines together in this compulsively readable teen romance. She peppers the novel with short passages from the Bible (including the book of Revelation) in order to craft a good-versus-evil morality tale writ large. For example, Sawyer, like others in his Demon group, must feed on human souls for sustenance, but he’s hesitant about it, especially after things turn more macabre and healthy humans, as opposed to infirm drifters, start getting killed. Such ethical issues are disquietingly uncomfortable and perhaps even beyond the scope of this story. Nevertheless, Hopkins delivers many successful elements of young-adult romance—appealing lead characters, high-voltage chemistry, repressed sexuality—which will win her ardent followers.
A paranormal YA tale that’s highly recommended for fans of the Twilight series; move over, Bella and Edward, there’s a new set of kids on the block.
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 351
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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