What if Dracula had descendants? Cary’s story begins a generation after Bram Stoker’s Dracula, likewise written in diary format. John Shaw, a WWI lieutenant, is awed by Captain Quincey Harker, but when he returns home wounded to be nursed back to health by Mary Seward, he’s haunted by horrifying delusions of his time with the Captain. Neither John nor Mary can prevent Harker—son of Stoker’s Mina—from eloping with John’s beloved sister Lily. Mary’s father teaches the couple everything he remembers about his youthful battle with Dracula and sends them off to rescue Lily. It seems that Harker’s not really the son of Stoker’s hero Jonathan Harker, but of Dracula’s descendant Count Tepes (the Romanian name for the historical Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, never used by Stoker). Much more horrifying revelations await John and Mary when they reach Transylvania and confront Harker’s demonic family. Flat characterization abounds, but unexpected plot twists enliven this intriguing reinterpretation of a classic. (Fantasy. 12-16)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-59514-012-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
A revolution in Istanbul behind them, Alek and Deryn travel wherever the living airship Leviathan is ordered by the British...
The Leviathan trilogy-ender delivers on the promise of the series: thrilling airship battles, world travel, ginormous Tesla coils and a few daring smooches.
A revolution in Istanbul behind them, Alek and Deryn travel wherever the living airship Leviathan is ordered by the British Empire. Deryn knows Alek’s secret—that he is heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—but Alek doesn't know that Deryn is truly a girl. They don't have much time to spare for their own personal soap opera as they freewheel around war-torn continents, from Siberia to Japan to the United States to Mexico. Alek and Deryn escape ravenous fighting bears tall as houses, ride atop a gale-tossed airship and star in motion pictures. The whole is peppered with sagacious statements from the tragically underused Perspicacious Lorises, faux-simple creatures always ready to spout off a wise word or three. This entry is relatively light on the steam-powered clankers and genetically engineered beasties that drove the first two volumes of the trilogy, replacing them with repeated airborne drama. Still, any lost steampunky science is compensated for by nonstop action; it's hard to mind theatrical revelations when they occur in a made-for-CGI storm. Besides, in the midst of all that action Alek learns the art of navigation and how to measure the weight of water; how cool is that?Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4169-7177-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Medieval monastic melodrama, murder, mayhem.
Despite any number of apparitions and a (real) setting with the tantalizing name of Disibodenberg, Dyrek’s debut is anything but comical. When a knight returning from the First Crusade brings not only the fabled Spear of Longinus, said to be the one that pierced Jesus’ side, but murderous pursuers determined to reclaim the relic for political purposes, the seemingly peaceful German monastery begins to look like a killing field. As the corpses accumulate, two teenage sleuths—bookish monk Volmar and a visionary new anchorite, or hermit, named Hildegard (yes, that one, the one from Bingen)—search for clues to killers and causes, uncover an older crime and struggle to reconcile their own fleshly desire for one another with their spiritual vows and commitments. This last becomes a major theme, resolved at last with laudable (if slightly alien to faithless modern readers) mutual agreement that the soul’s imperatives must ever trump the body’s. The author also strews her tale with generous measures of intrigue, sudden violence, poison, evidence to decipher, secrets waiting to be revealed, specters either holy (in Hildegard’s case) or otherwise and figures and incidents drawn from history. Despite some anachronisms and loose ends, a sturdy kickoff with a distinctly different duo of detectives. (Historical fantasy. 12-15)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-935462-39-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Luminis
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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