A frothy tale that mixes a whodunit and a teen romance with knights and prophecies.
A reluctant psychic stumbles across a murder most foul in this debut YA novel.
The aptly named Jules Verity comes from a family of “gifted” women. Her grandmother reads auras, her mother reads objects, and Jules makes psychic predictions. Unfortunately, she blurts out prophecies that are often ill-timed and difficult to understand (for example, “the Hepplewhite hides the boogers”). Jules needs a summer job and winds up playing the Mad Maid of Kent at Tudor Times, a local Renaissance-themed, dinner-theater experience. Jules’ random predictions align perfectly with her role as a crazy psychic nun, and she gets to work in proximity to her longtime crush, the swoon-worthy Grayson Chandler. The good news: Grayson is handsome and loves The Princess Bride. The bad news: he thinks Jules is nuts, and he already has the perfect girlfriend, Bree Blair. Yet Jules’ concerns about her love life take a back seat when she stumbles across a body in a secret passageway. The body quickly disappears, and no one believes her until another one is discovered and Jules becomes a target and suspect. Grayson, a Tudor Times knight-in-training, gets the task of guarding Jules, although it turns out it may be her heart that needs protection. The novel is a sweet and entertaining concoction despite the presence of murder and intrigue. Jules is a funny, often cringeworthy heroine who believes her tendency to let loose bizarre prophecies makes her a freak. Swap out Jules’ supernatural talents for body issues or acne and the reader has a relatable and archetypal teen. Held does an admirable job of crossing genres; the budding romance between Grayson and Jules is enjoyable to watch unfold, while Held’s murder mystery is a satisfying whodunit. The setting at a Medieval Times-like destination in a town called Lunevale adds another dose of humor. Held incorporates a quirky cast of characters, such as Floyd the Keeper and King Henry VIII, re-enactors who spend their lives in character and provide subtle foils to Jules, who may not be the crazy one after all.
A frothy tale that mixes a whodunit and a teen romance with knights and prophecies.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63375-227-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
SEEN & HEARD
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
PERSPECTIVES
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