A clever series continues in a novel that despite its grim setting is often sweet.
Andersen’s hero is back in hell, this time helping Death himself, in the YA series that began with The Devil’s Apprentice (2018).
Philip Engel has just started eighth grade. Since recently returning from hell, he’s been indulging his devilish side with risky behavior. He can often hear the voice of Satina, a girl devil he befriended, egging him on in his head. One night, after seeing his mother suffer a crippling migraine, Philip wakes from a nightmare. Outside his window is a horrible storm—and an old man he recognizes as Mortimer, aka Death. Philip ventures into the courtyard, and lightning strikes a tree that hits his head. The boy wakes up on a landing between heaven and hell. Though he misses his deceased father, Victor, who he’s sure is in heaven, he also misses Satina. His decision is made when the devil girl appears and escorts him to Death’s house. There, Mortimer reveals that his hundred-sided die, used to determine the length of a mortal's life, has been stolen. When Philip sees the hourglass representing his mother’s life, almost empty of sand, he agrees to help Death on one condition: that he’s granted a roll of the die to try to keep his mother alive longer. In this sequel Andersen quickly reorients readers to Philip’s world and offers a fresh mystery. Hell and its outskirts are moodily detailed as a place where “stunted, leafless trees stretched like praying creatures reaching up with a thousand slender fingers.” Old companions like Lucifax the cat and the devil himself return, as do bits of philosophy that give the series weight, including the line, “Men and women value only that which they might lose….Without death, life is uninteresting and utterly meaningless.” Andersen also humorously deals with familiar parts of the Bible, such as “a flood to cleanse earth of all its scum and waywardness.” Philip’s growth as a character remains a priority, too, and the true whereabouts of his father are teased throughout the narrative. The finale resets the board for the next installment.
A clever series continues in a novel that despite its grim setting is often sweet.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 325
Publisher: Høst & Søn
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer.
Even a war driven by gods can’t sever communication between journalist lovers Iris and Roman in this steampunk-adjacent romantic adventure.
A prologue sets the scene: Dacre, a god strummed to sleep by magic in Divine Rivals (2023), will not slumber forever. His willingness to wage war to acquire more powerful magic leads him to lay waste to entire towns, and Inkridden Tribune journalist Iris Winnow and war correspondent Roman Kitt can no longer be assured the other is safe—or even still alive. In Iris’ world of cigarette smoke, copper pipes, and driving goggles, colleagues affectionately call each other by their last names, watch each other’s backs, and face danger on the front lines. Though Underling Correspondent Roman is traveling with Dacre’s army, he questions why he was healed of his grievous wounds, while at the same time, he gradually recovers memories of Iris and recalls that she was special to him. Their magically connected typewriters allow for the rediscovery of their love and for communicating potentially deadly information about the invasion of Hawk Shire. The story primarily unfolds from Iris’ and Roman’s viewpoints, and while the prose occasionally uses well-worn phrases, Anglophiles will particularly enjoy the worldbuilding, and returning readers will welcome appearances from Capt. Keegan Torres; her wife, Marisol; and Dacre’s archnemesis—and wife—the goddess Enva. Main characters present white.
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250857453
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Truly fantastic.
This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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