Potentially interesting, but only time (i.e., future books) will tell.
In the first of a Norse-inflected high fantasy series, five sisters (and one stepbrother) threaten the status quo of all the countries of Thyrsland.
The once strong and hearty King Athelrick of Almissia is dying from a mysterious illness. While his despairing second wife, Queen Gudrun, claims that the king’s sickness has a mundane cause, the king’s eldest daughter, a quick-tempered, ruthlessly pragmatic warrior incongruously named Bluebell, is convinced that evil magic is at work…and she’s right. Bluebell gathers her four sisters together in a quest for his cure only to discover that her siblings don’t share her country- and family-first attitude; they have their own preoccupations. Queen Rose of Nettlechester longs for her lover, Heath, her royal husband’s nephew, who secretly fathered her child. Ash feels overwhelmed by her growing affinity to undermagic and tormented by visions that she will one day doom thousands. Ivy resents leaving her comfortable life with her uncle and aunt while lusting for every good-looking man she sees. Willow has rejected her family’s pantheistic religion in favor of the monotheistic, patriarchal trimartyr faith and believes that the god Maava’s angels speak to her personally. And Gudrun’s son by her first marriage, the ambitious Wylm, sees this calamity as an opportunity to claim the throne for himself. Wilkins does an excellent job of setting the stage for her series, but it’s disappointing that most of the novel is basically a mechanism to put the characters in place for future drama later. The story is also short on surprises; it seems fairly obvious how the women’s iconic roles (warrior, magician, priestess, etc.) and personal flaws will lead them toward tragedy. Given that the novel is clearly inspired by Norse folklore, that is probably deliberate but may lose some readers with more modern expectations. Ash redeems the book by being the most sympathetic and interesting of the bunch; her magic and intelligence make her more self-aware than her sisters, who generally fail to consider the consequences of their actions.
Potentially interesting, but only time (i.e., future books) will tell.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-17747-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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