Lush, evocative descriptions carry readers through an unforgettable journey.
A practitioner of magic struggles with her forbidden love for a king as she and her friends/students are threatened by impending war in the second of Gastreich’s (Eolyn, 2016, etc.) fantasy series.
Eolyn, the sole High Maga left in the kingdom of Moisehén, has a small coven with only five girls under her wing. They reside in the meek province of Moehn to hone their magic, an art once prohibited for females. Eolyn has long been in love with King Akmael, but years earlier she turned down his offer of marriage believing that a woman cannot be both Queen and High Maga. Akmael, in the interim, wed Taesara, the princess of Roenfyn, as part of a political maneuver to ensure an alliance between the two kingdoms. Meanwhile, dying San’iloman (leader) of the Syrnte, Joturi-Nur, names his granddaughter Rishona as his successor. Easily defending her claim by killing one of the princes who challenges her, Rishona makes plans to invade Moisehén, where she would have been princess if not for her parents’ murders long ago. She summons Naether Demons from the Underworld, and ensuing attacks put everyone in danger, including Eolyn’s students and friend/music teacher, Adiana. Battling demons may take a back seat for Eolyn when someone abducts members of her coven. Gastreich’s unhurried but engaging tale is heavily populated with characters and social themes, including feminism and bigotry: Roenfyn citizens are known for their disdain for “witches.” Characters are undeniably versatile; Rishona, though unquestionably the villain, is still worthy of admiration—at age 6, she demanded that her uncle teach her to wield a sword. But the story’s greatest triumph is Gastreich’s prose, a consistent blend of lyrical verse and dark imagery: “Trees creaked and groaned as if death were being drawn up in excruciating threads through their roots.” The inevitable clash, while striking, is over too soon, and a couple of significant deaths hardly leave a mark. There is, however, ample material left for the series’ subsequent volume.
Lush, evocative descriptions carry readers through an unforgettable journey.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9972320-1-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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