An enticing and elegant series finale filled with magic and turmoil.
In this conclusion of a fantasy trilogy, treachery and thoughts of retribution may spawn a devastating war between kingdoms.
Eolyn, high maga and queen of Moisehén, is content in Moehn with her princess daughter, Briana, and maga (female) students. But the king’s mages, at the order of Eolyn’s husband, Akmael the mage king, demand all magas return to the City, their arms taken and their magic bound. Eolyn retains her own magic, but she, along with every maga, is held prisoner in the City. This is the king’s response to Eolyn’s student Maga Ghemena and two other maga warriors committing treason by freeing captive (and princess) Eliasara. Eliasara’s the daughter of Akmael and his previous wife/queen, Taesara, a princess of Roenfyn who’s been in a decadelong exile. Once mother and daughter are reunited, Ghemena promises a chance at vengeance against Akmael—aligning with other kingdoms and placing Eliasara rightfully on Moisehén’s throne. With the king distrustful of magas and her student’s reputed betrayal, Eolyn, relegated to the East Tower, searches for allies or perhaps just a friend (for example, Mage Corey of East Selen). War, meanwhile, is imminent, and a wizard’s curse incites chaos within Moisehén. Gastreich (Sword of Shadows, 2016, etc.) thankfully ends her series with the strongest entry. Characters, for one, are superbly fleshed out; there’s sympathy on both sides, as even Taesara, a wronged woman whose thirst for revenge is understandable, contemplates opting for peace in lieu of a confrontation. Nearly the entire plot is a tense buildup to an inevitable battle, but along the way are turncoats, surprising deaths, and a few bloody fights (at their best when Eolyn wields her sword, Kel’Barú). And as in the preceding books, the author writes in a refined, assertive style: “The silver-white blade flashed like lightning against a starless night, painting ribbons of black over jade-colored flesh, eliciting howls of rage and pain.” The climax may not be what some readers anticipate, but it’s impactful and wholly satisfactory.
An enticing and elegant series finale filled with magic and turmoil.Pub Date: May 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9972320-2-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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