High fantasy marked by restraint, subtlety, and deep character maneuvering.
This third installment of a series sees the fire-wielding Vatra clan one step closer to escaping its desert prison.
One thousand years ago, three elemental daeva clans—the Danai, the Valkirin, and the Marakai—imprisoned a fourth group, the Vatras, in a desert called the Kiln. Now, a fire-wielding Vatra named Nicodemus has escaped. He seeks beings known as talismans, who can break the storms that enclose the Kiln. Enter half-daeva Nazafareen; her lover, Darius; and the band of heroes aboard the ship Chione. They sail the Austral Ocean with Capt. Mafuone in search of Sakhet-ra-katme, one of the original talismans who sealed the Vatras. Hopefully, the long-lived Sakhet can point Nazafareen toward the child she hid years ago, 12-year-old Mebetimmunedjem. On the ship Asperta, Meb “the Mouse” is a Marakai who can’t manipulate water like the rest of the seafaring daevas. She’s a member of the crew, under Capt. Kasaika, with no idea of the forces converging on her. Meanwhile, in Persian Samarqand, Javid has become a successful delivery pilot for the merchant Izad Asabana. One of their best customers is Prince Shahak, who’s addicted to the magical rush of spell dust. And at Val Moraine, Victor Dessarian punishes his son Galen with the task of tunneling through the ice wall surrounding a holdfast. In this latest volume in The Fourth Talisman fantasy series, Ross (Solis, 2018, etc.) keeps all of her narrative plates spinning at top speed. While dialogue drives her plots, lyrical filigree exalts the whole, as in the line “One by one, the stars winked out, as if devoured by some slouching celestial beast.” And though a vast war threatens her alternate ancient Persia, the author once more proves the master of small character moments, as when Nazafareen feels that “something shifted in her heart” after seeing an Aurora in the night sky “bleeding pure light.” Cast members from Solis return in frightening ways, including Apollonian acolyte Thena, whose mind goes blank as she murders someone. By the end, Ross has primed audiences for an epic conclusion.
High fantasy marked by restraint, subtlety, and deep character maneuvering.Pub Date: June 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9990481-6-0
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Acorn
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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