Readers are left blinking and anticipating the next volume of this nightmarish saga.
In this sequel to Dreamfire (2015), Joshlyn grapples with her new Dream Walker status and her own nightmares.
Dream Walkers enter and help resolve the nightmares of others, and Josh is believed to be the True Dream Walker, endowed with special powers. In the previous novel, vicious villain Feodor tried to kill Josh with his memories, and now they linger in her subconscious, infecting her sleep with terrible dreams in which her relationship with him is both terrifying and erotic. She can tell no one that she’s building one of Feodor’s dream-controlling devices, and as her relationship with her boyfriend/apprentice, Will, suffers, she questions her own motives. Meanwhile, the princess Mirren has escaped the Hidden Kingdom, desperately seeking a genuine life only to find that she has entered a cutthroat political battle for dominion over the Dream. In order to maintain the balance between the Dream and the World, Josh and her family are forced to play a treacherous game with the very being that nearly destroyed them. Unlike the first book, this outing is not bogged down by numerous characters or convoluted politics. Written with an alluring, almost hallucinatory atmosphere punctuated by visceral horror, this is a phantasmagoric swirl in which quantum theory meets Freddy Krueger.
Readers are left blinking and anticipating the next volume of this nightmarish saga. (Paranormal adventure. 15-18)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-07811-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A very full mixed bag.
In the sequel to Furyborn (2018), Rielle and Eliana struggle across time with their powers and prophesied destinies.
Giving readers only brief recaps, this book throws them right into complicated storylines in this large, lovingly detailed fantasy world filled with multiple countries, two different time periods, and hostile angels. Newly ordained Rielle contends with villainous Corien’s interest in her, the weakening gate that holds the angels at bay, and distrust from those who don’t believe her to be the Sun Queen. A thousand years in the future, Eliana chafes under her unwanted destiny and finds her fear of losing herself to her powers (like the Blood Queen) warring with her need to save those close to her. The rigid alternation between time-separated storylines initially feels overstuffed, undermining tension, but once more characters get point-of-view chapters and parallels start paying off, the pace picks up. The multiethnic cast (human versus angelic is the only divide with weight) includes characters of many sexual orientations, and their romantic storylines include love triangles, casual dalliances, steady couples, and couples willing to invite in a third. While many of the physically intimate scenes are loving, some are rougher, including ones that cross lines of clear consent and introduce a level of violence that many young readers will not be ready for. The ending brings heartbreaking twists to prime readers for the trilogy’s conclusion.
A very full mixed bag. (map, list of elements) (Fantasy. 17-adult)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5665-4
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
A slasher flick spliced with Crime and Punishment, this engrossing debut novel asks complex philosophical questions in a...
An adolescent, yet Nietzschean, examination of humanity and horror.
Nita is a monster. Literally. She can heal her own wounds and even block her pain receptors. But she and her mother also deal in monsters, species regulated by the International Non-Human Police, selling their body parts on the black market. Her ghoulish mother hunts and kills, while Nita dissects them with a meditative grace, trying to think of herself as innocent. But when Nita’s conscience inconveniently prevents her from vivisecting a live specimen, she’s kidnapped and taken to the Amazon, caged by people in the same business. Menaced by a zannie (creatures that feed off physical pain) and a ruthless woman, Nita, who is mixed species (with a brown-skinned human father and a nonhuman mother), has to figure out how to escape and whether she has any morals to live by. The vivid setting, Mercado de la Muerte (one of several Death Markets worldwide) in a sweltering South American jungle populated by buyers, sellers, and sold, is matched by a zipping plot interspersed with deliciously horrifying and gory scenes of dismemberment and destruction. Equally intriguing is the constant musing on what makes a monster, how people respond to trauma and control, and how one’s choices affirm or deny one’s own humanity.
A slasher flick spliced with Crime and Punishment, this engrossing debut novel asks complex philosophical questions in a pleasingly hard-to-stomach way. (Fantasy. 15-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-86354-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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